Kootenai Health is trying the home-grown approach as it addresses its nursing shortage.
Last week, the Coeur d’Alene hospital announced it will partner with Idaho State University to offer an accelerated bachelor’s degree program, beginning next spring. It’s open to students who already have bachelor’s degrees in other fields.
ISU offers the program at its campuses in Pocatello and Meridian. Kelly Espinoza, the chief nursing officer at Kootenai Health, contacted the university about bringing it north.
“You know, you can get a bachelor’s in nursing in one year, which is phenomenal and it gives people an opportunity to become a nurse and work here at Kootenai Health really right out of the gate and go into our residency program," she said.
The students will take classes virtually with ISU faculty in Pocatello and in person with a newly-hired instructor in Coeur d’Alene. Kootenai Health will provide the facilities for clinical learning.
“It will give them the opportunity to see what it’s like in the various units, meet some of the other staff, work side-by-side in their clinical settings and then, obviously, meet some of the leaders and get to know some of the interdisciplinary team members, which creates an environment where they’ll want to stay and want to be part of our organization," Espinoza says.
Initially, the university will accept 10 students who will start next spring. But, ideally, says ISU College of Health Dean Teresa Conner, the program will expand and make a greater impact on the nursing shortage in north Idaho.
“When we talk to our partners at Kootenai, we often talk about 50 in a cohort one day. We really see the sky’s the limit. Kootenai Health is growing. There’s a great need. Your population is just growing exponentially, so the need for nursing is huge," she said.
Conner says the university would eventually like to extend its program to critical access hospitals in small towns, to ensure more rural residents can pursue nursing careers close to home.
“What we know from three decades of research is that if you train in place, train in a community, then students stay. They don’t leave. When we take students out of their communities, that’s when we have problems getting them to go back home," Conner said.
Once students graduate with their degrees, Espinoza says they can choose to participate in Kootenai Health’s one-year residency program for nurses as a way to help them choose a specialty and find their place within the hospital system.
