Hospital System Awards Nursing Scholarships to Combat the Nurse Shortage

The projected shortage of nurses in the next decade is a hot topic in the health care realm these days. A number of ways to attack the problem are being bandied about, but Infirmary Health System (IHS) in Alabama is being proactive to help ensure its five facilities are adequately staffed.

IHS, in a partnership with Bishop State Community College, will provide up to 100 nursing scholarships each year, beginning in the fall of 2008. The generous scholarships, which cover tuition, books and fees, are aimed at warding off a nurse shortage in south Alabama; one that is already occurring in other areas of the country. Financial need is not a consideration in the awarding of the scholarships. Most of the recipients’ clinical training will take place in IHS facilities and they will have the opportunity to have part-time employment within the system while attending the two-year RN program. Recipients are then required to work in an IHS facility for a prescribed length of time following graduation.

Perhaps other hospitals are instituting similar programs, which I believe to be inspired thinking. It has been a long held notion that nurses tend to work where they train. That is why, for so many years, hospitals maintained their own three-year nursing programs. There were exceptions, of course, but the new RNs most often would stay in the setting that was familiar to them and the hospital had a steady annual infusion of nurses. I did just that. I chose to stay at my ‘home hospital’ because I liked the work atmosphere there and I was comfortable in it.

Maybe more hospitals should take a look at the IHS scholarship plan as a method of maintaining adequate staffing. I would advise them, "Treat the students well and they’ll stick with you."

Is your hospital using innovative programs to attract and keep nursing staff? Tell me about them.