by SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Western State University’s nursing program is expanding its capacity in an effort to meet workforce needs in the area.
Nursing Department Chair Dr. Jacklyn Gentry says Missouri is included in the national statistics which show a nursing shortage that could continue until 2030.
“One of the big drivers behind that is that 50% of the nursing workforce is over the age of 50 and quickly nearing retirement,” Gentry says. “So we have to bring younger, newer nurses into the field to continue to care for everyone.”
Dr. Crystal Harris is the Interim Dean of Missouri Western’s College of Science and Health. Harris says Missouri Western communicates with area healthcare employers to determine what future workforce needs are.
“Nursing was number one on the top 25 needs for workers in northwest Missouri and so we wanted to help meet that need.”
Harris says they wanted to expand their nursing program to help meet that need, so they applied for and received an over $500,000 MoExcels grant.
“What we did with that was, we wanted to increase the access, not just for nursing, but for many other programs and we wanted to develop a pipeline for local talent into health careers. Since our mission is applied learning at Missouri Western, we wanted to incorporate applied learning opportunities, and so that’s why our simulation lab was so important,” Harris says. “So we developed capacity through the MoExcels grant, being able to increase classroom sizes, increase our simulation lab spaces, increase access to specific training equipment that would really help us prepare our graduates for the future of nursing and other fields.”
The nursing program will expand from 50 to 60 students per cohort.
The application deadline is August 15th for nursing students to join the spring cohort. For more information, visit missouriwestern.edu/nursing.