UNMC College of Nursing has been awarded $2.6 million from US Health Services & Resources Administration (HRSA) grant for “A State-Wide Nursing Education Model for Improving Primary Health Care in Nebraska”. This 4-year project is designed to prepare a new generation of nurses for primary care practice.
Preparing nurses for primary care practice is part of a national movement to value-based care. This change in health care deliver has highlighted the need for professional nurses in primary care practice to support complex activities such as care coordination, quality improvement, and addressing the needs of medically and socially complex patients. HRSA refers to this nursing role as “enhanced primary care nursing".
The UNMC College of Nursing project has 3 major aims:
- Developing and implementing a program of post-graduate training for nurses in enhanced primary care nursing, the PriCare Fellowship;
- Work with the undergraduate faculty to integrate “enhanced primary care” into the curriculum; and,
- Pilot a clinic project in partnership with North Omaha Area Health in north Omaha, and the rural health clinics affiliated with Franklin Memorial Health System in Franklin, NE to implement and demonstrate the impact of an enhanced primary care nurse-led intervention with medically and socially complex patients (high need, high cost).
Opportunities for community involvement include:
- We are seeking RN experts in primary care who are interested in serving on our Practice Advisory Group to advise us on curriculum, help us mentor post-graduate students, and help us develop clinical sites for students.
- We are interested in working with primary care practices who want to develop an enhanced primary care RN role for their current nurses or for new hires.
- We are looking for applicants who are applying to our undergraduate nursing program who would like to be on a special “Primary Care Track” that will prepare them to enter the primary care workforce on graduation.
- We are Looking for RNs who are in primary care or would like to re-train for primary care and are seeking advanced skills to support complex care activities.