Healthcare Workforce Summit

◆ Provide nurse educators benefit dollars to continue mentoring student nurses after they graduate. ◆ Incentives programs that help with loan repayment. For example, there are many students who have not completed their degree and have outstanding debt. This means they can’t register for the classes they need. One creative solution is to include an ‘other’ category when writing grants so there is money to help pay off small debts (sometimes just a few hundred dollars), so students can continue taking classes. ◆ Wraparound services targeted toward nurse educators (not just students). >> All SUNYs should come together to figure out how to help their own communities, the school’s bottom line, and the students. It could be a win-win-win endeavor. >> Work directly with employers to recruit directly from their clinical staff to do nurse education, with the goal of building in-house capacity within that health system and deliver programs and content to their existing workforce. >> One successful program involved recruiting local physicians to train med students. All training was done for free, but those educators were given a faculty appointment which comes with benefits such as free education. >> There is a lot of potential for providing credits for prior learning (work). >> Ensuring the nation has qualified nursing faculty must be federally administrated across all states. Without it, eventually certain markets will have an advantage over others. >> Work directly with employers on a ‘grow with us’ campaign to spotlight individual occupations and remove barriers for adults considering going back to school. Recruit from incumbent workers while providing prep and wraparound support services so if an adult learner reaches a road block, there are tutors who can help. >> Consider targeting some of the refugee and immigrant population for nursing programs/certifications.

Left to right: Keith Norman, Lauren Lankau, Carrie Roseamelia, Dave Seeley, Don Fiorelli, Dr. Johaun T. Jackson

13

Finger Lakes Workforce Development Center