Nursing Workforce Project of Wyoming

The Wyoming Community Foundation

Wyoming Nurses Association; Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing; Campbell County Memorial Hospital; University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences; Wyoming Office of Rural Health; Wyoming Regional Medical Center; Sigma Theta Tau – Alpha Pi Chapter; Westview Health Care Center; Wyoming Commission for Nursing and Nursing Education; Wyoming School Nurses Association; Wyoming Workforce Development Project; Nurse Educators of Wyoming; Powell Valley Healthcare; Wyoming Council of Advanced Practice Nurses; Wyoming Department of Employment; Wyoming Department of Health, Office of Rural Health; Wyoming Department of Workforce Services; Wyoming Healthcare Commission

Carol Macnee, Project coordinator, cmacnee@uwyo.edu,

307 766-5483

Samin Dadelahi, WYCF Senior Program office, samin@wycf.org,

307 721-8300 or 866-708-7878

Veronica Taylor, President WY Nurses Association, vftaylor@gmail.com,

307 687-7160

Brief Project Synopsis: 

The Wyoming Community Foundation’s mission is to connect people who care with causes that matter to build a better Wyoming. The WYCF responded to the University of Wyoming’s School of Nursing ‘s request to work together on a proposal for PIN. The partnership was timely due to the existence of a strong and well established collaborative that was in the process of collecting information from stakeholders on how best to address an impending workforce crisis. At the 2006 summit, WYCF President, George H. Gault, and representatives from statewide nursing organizations participated in a roundtable discussion of the Nursing Workforce Project For Wyoming (NWPW) program. Based on the outcome of that meeting, final revisions were made to NWPW. 

The NWPW proposal addresses both the priority areas of leadership and long-term care. Based on the four Wyoming Nursing Summits in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, two needs have been clearly identified. The first is a need to develop a Nursing Workforce Center that will serve as a coordinator, clearing house, and support for statewide efforts at understanding and planning to meet the nursing workforce needs in Wyoming. The second is the need to change the work place for nurses, particularly for nurses working with the aging population by developing and implementing positive experiences in the practice setting.  These needs will be addressed by the NWPW.

Project Goals and Objectives:

• To develop a Nursing Workforce Center (NWC) in order to identify and address factors which contribute to the demand and the supply of CNAs, LPNs, and RNs in Wyoming
• To implement and evaluate pilot projects that will impact work place environment in health care delivery settings in Wyoming with an emphasis on settings which provide care to the aging population in Wyoming.