Most of us have heard about the nursing shortage that has been spreading across the United States for the past decade. Yet, with such a high demand for qualified nurses, nursing schools are finding themselves overflowing with applicants, with waiting lists that can delay students for years.
For National Nurses Week, May 6-12, Noozhawk is taking a closer look at not just where this shortage is coming from, but where the solutions lie within the gray area between our education and health-care systems.
Santa Barbara County is fortunate to be surrounded by so many highly regarded educational institutions, and local nursing programs may be some of the most developed of them all.
“You can do it all here in Santa Barbara — you don’t have to go away,” explained Ann Marie Kopeikin, the director of vocational nursing at Santa Barbara City College.
And she’s right. Not only are educational institutions like San Marcos High School, SBCC and CSU Channel Islands offering collaborative nursing programs, but some of the area’s leading health-care institutions, like Cottage Health and Sansum Clinic, are stepping up to partner with them.
The collaborations provide unique training and education pathways to give students a leg up in their new careers.
As demands on the U.S. health-care system continue to increase with the expansion in coverage through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and as nurses continue to retire at an increasingly rapid pace, the toll is even greater when the growing number of people needing care is factored in.
“We have a dichotomy when it comes to what the resources are for replacing our aging workforce — and the dichotomy is we have a lot of new, young people who are entering the field and the profession of nursing, (but) we have a shortage of nurses across the country in terms of finding experienced nurses,” noted Herb Geary, chief nursing officer at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
Given the demand from health-care institutions and the impacts on nursing programs across the nation, it might seem odd that the problem hasn’t fixed itself by now.
But the issue students find themselves facing — besides the long waiting lists and high tuition costs — is work experience. Local educational institutions have some solutions in the works, however.
Kopeikin said SBCC’s nursing program is implementing a new admission system she refers to as a “multicriteria process.”
What does this mean? No more waiting lists.
“People would get on the waitlist, you’d have to finish all your (prerequisites), and then you’d be on the waitlist for about three years,” she explained.
That is not only discouraging for many students who risk losing their momentum, but it’s unrealistic for those who are waiting to begin their careers.
One student interviewed by Noozhawk agreed.
“I’m feeling pretty over waiting,” said the student, who has been on the waiting list since 2014 and whose start date is not scheduled until 2019. “The idea of going to nursing school after such a long break feels a bit overwhelming.
“I’ve lost the momentum I had when I was in school and finishing my prerequisites. I’ve been looking into other options.”
Kopeikin noted that SBCC will be slowly implementing the new “point-based” system, which allows students to enter the nursing program right away based on how many points they accrue across a variety of criteria.
“This is just a godsend to the students, and it will help (them) to be more prepared,” she explained. “Instead of taking anatomy and physiology five years before you get into nursing school, it’s a semester before you get into nursing school.”
It’s not just at SBCC. Kopeikin expects that many schools throughout California will adopt similar admission systems in the future.
“There is no waitlist, the waitlist is gone,” she said.
In addition, to help prepare for the “Silver Tsunami” that America’s rapidly aging population is bringing, SBCC last year introduced the Memory Care Program to prepare students to provide that care.
Kopeikin described it as being “dedicated to improving the quality of life of the older adults with dementia.”
“It is specifically designed to provide persons new to memory care or family caregivers with essential knowledge and skills that will greatly improve the experience of the memory-impaired older adult,” she said.
For some nursing students in Santa Barbara, education does not just begin in college.
At San Marcos High School, students are beginning their health-care careers as early as 10th grade, thanks to the Health Careers Academy.
First established during the 2000-2001 school year, the program offers both an Advanced Health-Care Pathway and a Nursing Pathway, with “nearly half of the students (participating) in the nursing program their senior year,” said Marene Newman, director of the Health Careers Academy.
The academy prepares students for their future careers in a multitude of ways — by providing them with on-site learning opportunities at Cottage Hospital, with lectures from industry professionals and with various professional certifications.
When nursing students graduate from the academy, they’ve already gained real-world work experiences as well as earned their Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) license.
The San Marcos High program has a partnership with Cottage Hospital and with SBCC — with their nursing classes being taught on the City College campus.
“These guys are so dedicated — they are here at 7 a.m. Monday through Friday, and then they’re in clinical on Saturdays … but they get a CNA,” Kopeikin said.
Newman explained that the academy is all about preparation, but not just with the students’ nursing skills.
“We try to prepare the kids as to what type of environment and how they’re going to function within health care,” she said.
“We also prepare them to get a job right out of high school” by providing them with industry-level certification opportunities, she added.
For those who choose to continue their education, though, Newman noted how it is “very competitive for the students to get into the universities, it’s hard and expensive,” and that it tends to be a high cause of stress for her students.
Between San Marcos High’s Health Careers Academy and SBCC’s nursing program, students have the opportunity to receive both their CNA and their RN certifications, respectively.
Yet it doesn’t end there. The final piece of the puzzle is getting that four-year Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) that so many hospitals and clinics require. And that’s where CSU Channel Islands enters the picture.
“We also have a bridge with CAL State Channel Islands …,” Kopeikin said, “… where our students are able to (take) the RN to BSN route.”
This program — which can be pursued on either a 15-month or a 22-month schedule — is completed through combined study at SBCC and CSUCI.
Although “there is no wait list” at CSU Channel Islands — as noted by Karen Jensen, program chairwoman of nursing, the university does require certain “supplemental criteria for admission for each program.”
She also mentioned that officials have noticed “an increase in nurses returning to school for their BSN degree with the national goal of 80 percent of nurses educated at the BSN level by 2020.”
In addition to academic opportunities, SBCC recently received a grant to host a September nursing symposium for which nurses and educators from throughout Southern California will be invited. Jean Watson, a prominent nursing theorist, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker.
“She’s up there with Florence Nightingale as far as nursing is concerned,” Kopeikin noted.
Organizers hope the symposium focuses on the caring practices used by nurses.
“I really believe a nurses’ touch can be a healing touch,” she said.
Overall, it appears that the future of nursing and nursing education will be filled with opportunities and developments that will change the face of the health-care system.
“Nursing is hard work — it is physically, it is mentally, it is emotionally hard work — but it’s also, to me, one of the most fulfilling,” Kopeikin said.
— Noozhawk contributing writer Kellie Kreiss can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkSociety, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.