A new University of Colorado Colorado Springs partnership will help five Colorado community colleges develop nursing professionals to serve their rural communities, thanks to a $2.22 million grant from the Colorado Health Foundation.

The gift is the largest in the history of the UCCS Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

The Southern Colorado Rural Nursing Education and Practice Collaborative launched at Beth-El will enable community college nursing students to earn bachelor of science degrees in nursing by taking courses at their local community college or online. Students will complete their nursing curriculum with many courses taught in real time by Beth-El faculty in Colorado Springs and directed toward students in rural areas such as Lamar, Alamosa, Trinidad and Durango.

The program and the Colorado Health Foundation grant address a critical problem. The U.S. nursing shortage is projected to grow to 260,000 by the year 2025, and Colorado's nursing vacancy rate is double the national average. Rural southern Colorado faces extreme challenges recruiting advanced practice nurses and nursing faculty. Associate nursing degrees offered by the community colleges do not alone qualify graduates for teaching or nurse practitioner roles – thus limiting the availability of high-quality health care in those communities.

"With advanced nursing degrees, nurses can see patients independently and prescribe medications. But here in Lamar, we have not been able to educate for these roles," said Sandy Summers, director of nursing and allied health programs at Lamar Community College. "This grant enables UCCS and its southern Colorado community college partners to collaborate in a way that I have not seen in the 18 years that I have been in nursing education."

The UCCS program aims to increase the number of nursing professionals who serve rural southern Coloradans by at least 45. The program, based on a smaller pilot program Beth-El launched in 2008 at Lamar Community College, will incorporate state-of-the-art Cisco Telepresence conferencing technology to foster greater academic connection for distance learners via high-definition video and other interactive features. UCCS is the first college in the nation to use the technology in its classrooms.

"It is extremely important to streamline nursing education to create access for our rural community college partners and citizens, and enable available and affordable health care services in the future," says Beth-El Dean Nancy Smith.

The program aligns with a core priority of the Colorado Health Foundation, which has made several grants this year that focus on improving access to care in Colorado's rural counties.

"This is an innovative nursing education project with strong partnerships that will address critical nursing work force needs in southern Colorado," said Colleen Church, a program officer with the Colorado Health Foundation. "Ultimately, we think this is an incredible opportunity to keep their nursing talent in southern Colorado in order to maintain and increase access to needed, high-quality care."

The colleges invited to participate in this program are Lamar Community College, Otero Junior College, Pikes Peak Community College, Pueblo Community College and Trinidad State Junior College.

The grant also will support equipment for the Clinical Simulation Learning Center, to help Beth-El faculty "teach the teachers" and provide competency-based testing of students earning clinical training hours required for certification.

The Colorado Health Foundation works to make Colorado the healthiest state in the nation by investing in grants and initiatives to health-related nonprofits that focus on increasing the number of Coloradans with health insurance; ensuring they have access to quality, coordinated care; and encouraging healthy living. For more information, visit www.coloradohealth.org.