Southern Indiana focuses on the nursing shortage

The region in southern Indiana has launched a new initiative to address the shortage of nurses.

The University of Evansville has received a two-year, $180,000 Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development grant for its nursing education program.The university will use the funding to enhance its nursing education program by adding patient simulation experiences, increasing class size and recruiting nursing students from underrepresented groups, said Lynn Penland, dean of UE's College of Education and Health Sciences.

Funding from the WIRED grant will help support a nurse to coordinate the nursing simulation laboratory and increase public awareness of nursing as a career.

Initiatives will target prospective nursing students from underrepresented groups including men, cultural/racial minorities, and students from the southwest Indiana region.

The nursing simulation laboratory, located in the nursing department, allows students to practice their clinical skills on Sim-Man or other patient simulators - sophisticated computerized manekins who can be programmed to exhibit any illness or injury. Sim-Man is the most recent addition to the UE lab’s Sim-family of training simulators, which already have been available to UE nursing students.

You can read more here.