Representatives from Community Howard Regional Health and Indiana University Kokomo announced Thursday at the hospital that the two institutions will be partnering to support a new nurse practitioner program at the university.
Community Howard will be donating $500,000 over the next five years in support of the program.
“Hopefully by that time, the program will be self-sustaining,” said Joe Hooper, president of Community Howard.
Linda Wallace, dean of the School of Nursing at IUK, said she has been working on creating this program for the past few years, and now, thanks to Commmunity Howard’s donation, that effort is coming to fruition.
According to Hooper, nurse practitioners are becoming increasingly important to the medical field. As physicians retire, and those positions become difficult to fill, nurse practitioners have been taking on duties traditionally completed by primary care physicians.
A nurse practitioner was described by Wallace as taking a nursing position to the next level.
The new program, which will be offered at IUK starting January 2017, will product family nurse practitioners. According to Wallace, this is broader than other practitioner positions, which can fall into specific areas like pediatrics and adult care.
The broadness of the track is important for this area because, according to Hooper, the region is 17 primary physician positions short. Hooper said they will not be able to fill all of those positions, so a local practitioner program will create a pipeline to fill vacant spots, following the current trend of nurse practitioners taking over physician duties.
“We’re not really looking to start up a new program to send everybody across the world to practice,” said Hooper. “It’s about supporting the local region.”
The new track will be through the university's master’s in nursing program and will be, according to Wallace, intense and rigorous. It could potentially be finished in two years, but Wallace said it will most likely take seven semesters.
“And the application is being put up online as we speak,” said Wallace.
This will continue an existing relationship between the two institutions, as Community Howard has been opening its doors to IUK nursing students doing clinical work, which is required for their degree, for years.
IUK currently offers a four-year degree in nursing, a program that takes a two-year degree graduate and takes them to the four-year level, and a master’s degree in nursing. This new focus will be adding yet “another layer” to what the university offers, said Susan Sciame-Giesecke, chancellor of IUK.
“Indiana University Kokomo obviously is very grateful to the Community system for supporting this particular program,” said Sciame-Giesecke.
The donated money will be going to hiring a director for the track, who will create curriculum, teach courses and line up clinical placements for students.