Contact information: 413/775-1627
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Contact: Judi Singley
Phone: 413/775-1627
E-mail: singley@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
Marketing & Publications
413/775-1420 | carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Release date: March 21, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

College and hospital collaborate to address nursing shortage

Greenfield Community College and Franklin Medical Center have embarked on a long-term collaboration to address the nursing shortage by sharing their resources. The first phase of these efforts places Valerie George, a nurse from Franklin Medical Center, in a GCC nursing skills lab two-and-a-half days a week to assist in the hands-on training of students enrolled in the Registered Nurse program.

"We wanted to offer students more hands-on practice in the kinds of tasks they would be performing as they advanced in their nursing curriculum,” says Judi Singley, Associate Dean of Health Occupations at GCC, "which requires more equipment and resources. So we began talking with the Franklin (Medical Center) about doing something for the nursing skills lab.”

Franklin Medical Center responded with the donation of new equipment and the services of Valerie George, RN, BSN, a clinical practice nurse at FMC, to share the most up-to-date experience in patient care. "I work with the freshman students who are learning the skills involved in the role of nursing,” says George, who has been a critical care nurse for more than 27 years. "Our first skills are taking vital signs; currently we're working on preparing and giving medications. The students are practicing the very basics of nursing: learning to recognize what's going on with the patient, recognizing changes in health symptoms, understanding how to properly prepare and dispense medications. It's what takes the nurse beyond the realm of an aid or an LPN.”

"It's real-life learning,” says Deborah Palmeri, Chief Nursing Officer at Franklin Medical Center. "The benefit for the college is that we have provided them with a nurse who had practiced at the bedside until the day she took this other job, so her skills are very up-to-date.”

At the hospital, George works with the new nursing graduates. "I know when I meet them at the door as new employees that they'll be able to hit the ground running,” said George. Franklin Medical Center is a major employer of GCC nursing graduates.

George's presence in the skills lab frees up a GCC faculty member for teaching responsibilities. This is important because the current nursing shortage, which is nationwide, can be traced directly to the lack of faculty in nursing programs like the one at Greenfield Community College. Full-time tenure track nursing faculty need to have a masters degree in nursing, yet masters-prepared nurses are drawn to higher paid administrative positions at hospitals, rather than teaching positions at colleges and universities. Greenfield Community College, for example, lost two nursing faculty to retirement last year, and has been able to hire only one replacement because of the lack of qualified candidates. This means that GCC is unable to expand its nursing program at this time, in spite of increasing numbers of applicants. Fewer openings for students wishing to become nurses then becomes a problem for hospitals.

"The average age of nurses both at Franklin and nationwide is 48,” says Palmeri. "Probably within ten years we will really begin to feel the effects of the nursing shortage. We hear from our colleagues at the community college and at the University of Massachusetts of the numbers of students they're turning away because they don't have enough faculty. So we thought, ‘How can we help?' By allowing Val to provide support in the skills laboratory, it frees up the faculty to teach classes at the college.”

Greenfield Community College, in return, expects to work with FMC to provide needed continuing education coursework in the summer for nurses at Franklin. "So we're both able to expand our course offerings in a collaborative fashion,” says Palmeri.

Looking down the road, the college is exploring grant opportunities to fund a shared skills lab with the hospital. "There are really incredible teaching resources which the college could use for its skills lab and Franklin could use for its staff development,” says Singley. "Why should both the college and the hospital be expanding their skills labs, training materials and resources at the same time? Why can't we collaborate? Franklin Medical Center's willingness to do so is really exciting.”

For more information, please call Judi Singley at 413-775-1627.