Federal money aimed at growing local nurse workforce

The Clemson University School of Nursing has received a $2.7 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help increase the nurse practitioner workforce in Oconee County and five other Upstate counties. Over the next four years, the grant will fund education for nurse practitioners who apply for this opportunity within the School of Nursing, as part of the grant-funded program Advanced Nursing Education Workforce (ANEW). The first 13 students in the project were admitted this month. ANEW Project lead investigator and nursing professor Stephanie Davis said this program will promote nurse practitioner primary care education while addressing the health care needs of diverse, rural and underserved individuals and their families in Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Oconee, Pickens and Spartanburg counties. Nursing professor Stephanie Davis says nurse practitioners are able to manage the long-term and chronic health care needs of patients, and through this grant the goal is to increase access to primary care in rural, underserved areas of the Appalachian counties. Davis says there is not only a shortage of nurse practitioners in the state and in the nation, but also a mal-distribution of care between urban and rural areas. In South Carolina, there are 2,036 nurse practitioners, whereas only 290 are identified as working in rural areas, according to a South Carolina Office for Healthcare Workforce publication. The team has identified and plans to address some of the barriers that keep nurse practitioners from working in rural areas, including a lack of available clinical preceptors and clinical training sites in rural and underserved areas.