Building Faculty Capacity in Geriatric Nursing for Central Minnesota

West Central Initiative (WCI)

Central Minnesota Area Health Education Center (AHEC), U of M School of Nursing Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence

Wendy Merrick, WCI Program Director, wendy@wcif.org, 800-735-2239

Christine Mueller, University of Minnesota, School of Nursing, Associate Professor, cmueller@umn.edu, 612-626-4922

Laurissa Stigen, Central MN AHEC Executive Director, Laurissa.Stigen@minnesota.edu, 218-736-1601

Brief Project Synopsis: 

WCI has been investing in nursing’s future for more than a decade. Our regional sector partnership completed an extensive needs assessment in 2003 and has spent ensuring years implementing strategies to break the bottlenecks in our health care workforce development system.

Our project takes a “grow your own” approach to addressing professional nursing workforce needs.  We are targeting faculty development in geriatrics and long-term care.  The project will customize an existing Faculty Learning About Geriatrics (FLAG) program to better respond to regional needs. The focus of the FLAG program is on increasing the number of faculty with expertise in geriatric nursing.  We will also be recruiting new nurses who desire an academic career in geriatric nursing education into doctoral study.  Each year will culminate in a workshop bringing faculty and long-term care staff together to co-create exemplary clinical experiences for students.

Project Goals and Objectives:

The long-term goal of this project is to increase the number of registered nurses in central Minnesota who are competent in providing nursing care to elderly persons.

     Objective 1:  Strengthen geriatric nursing focus in the curricula of ten schools of nursing.  

     Objective 2:  Increase the expertise in geriatric nursing of existing nursing faculty.

     Objective 3:  Increase the number of new faculty with expertise in geriatric nursing.