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On March 7, UNMC will seek approval from the University of Nebraska Board of Regents for the construction of an addition to the College of Nursing.
The proposed addition will provide space to educate more nurses at the baccalaureate, masters and doctorate degree levels to help alleviate the growing nursing shortage in the state.
The addition, which will cost $14 million, is being made possible by a donation from Ruth and Bill Scott, generous benefactors of UNMC and the University of Nebraska.
For Bill Scott, this is all about addressing the nursing shortage.
“I think the nursing shortage is the key issue in health care today. It needs to be resolved,” he said. “Nurses play such an important role in health care. You just can’t underestimate the value of nurses — they are truly the first line to patients.
“With the baby boomers aging, the need for nurses has never been greater. Ruth and I are honored to make this donation. It’s an effort that is dear to our hearts. We hope the additional space will enable the College of Nursing to recruit and train more nursing students and faculty and put the nursing shortage in Nebraska behind us.”
The building addition is proposed to be a separate structure near the east end of the existing building at 42nd Street and Dewey Avenue. It will be connected to the main building by a short grade level link. It will be a multi-story structure containing approximately 42,550 square feet of space for classrooms, labs, faculty offices and nursing research. Construction is expected to begin in December with completion by March of 2010.
“Nurses make the critical difference in how well patients do as they experience disease and disability. Every patient deserves — not just a nurse — but a nurse with the high level training needed for today’s intensive care environments,” said Virginia Tilden, D.N.Sc., dean of the UNMC College of Nursing. “At UNMC, we can accommodate more qualified student applicants with the new facilities.”
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Federal and state statistics indicate that Nebraska’s nursing shortage will jump from nine percent in 2002 to 20 percent in 2020, and by that time, Nebraska will have a shortage of about 3,800 registered nurses.
The demand for qualified nurses is amplified by the fact that there is an increasing shortage of nursing faculty. It is estimated that the average age of nursing faculty is 54 years.
“A national and state shortage of nurse faculty means a squeeze on the pipeline for new nurses,” Dr. Tilden said. “With the additional faculty needed in the future, this gift will allow us to bring in new faculty and meet the needs of the next generation of nursing students. Many faculty are nearing retirement age. We need both replacement and new faculty, and this means we must grow more of our own by encouraging students to get the master’s and doctoral degrees needed to teach, in addition to recruiting faculty from other institutions.”
Over the past six years, the UNMC College of Nursing has taken major steps to address the health workforce problems of Nebraska through programs that produce not just more nurses but different nurses, ready to tackle the complex health care issues of tomorrow. The college has increased enrollment by more than 28 percent since 2002 without lowering admission standards and with no additional resources.