.gif "Visit the JMU Homepage")
$1.2 Million Grant Funds JMU Graduate Nursing Program
September 2, 2004
HARRISONBURG — A $1.2 million federal grant to James Madison University is funding a new master's program aimed at increasing the numbers of nurses serving the needs of a rapidly aging population and of teachers of nursing to combat a national critical shortage of nurses.
The first master of science in nursing program at JMU has been launched this fall thanks to a three-year Advanced Education Nursing Program grant from the Health Resources and Service Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Merle Mast, professor and head of JMU's department of nursing and project director for the grant, said the two-year master's program offers two role options: nurse practitioner and nurse educator.
Graduates of the nurse practitioner track will be certified as adult or gerontological nurse practitioners, with the focus on providing primary care. The nurse educator track will train graduates to teach in collegiate nursing programs and community education settings.
Associate Professor Linda J. Hulton, coordinator of the master's program, said the value of the nurse practitioner track will be to improve the health and quality of life for older adults in Virginia, including those in medically underserved rural communities.
"In our area, there are 10 communities designated by the government as 'medically unserved' and 'health-professional shortage areas,'" said Hulton. "The current and future impact of chronic disease in the Blue Ridge region is profound, and our new program will help to meet that need by providing nurse practitioners who have special training with aging clients."
Nationally, a quarter of Americans will be age 65 or older by 2030, doubling from 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2000 — an increase of 30 million — according to JMU's nursing department.
Virginia is projected to reach the 25 percent mark of older adults in the commonwealth five years earlier in 2025.
Hulton said the effect of those projections on health-care systems nationwide will be significant because the elderly are the greatest users of in-patient medical care and pharmaceuticals, and they have higher rates of hospitalization, surgery and doctor visits than other age groups.
"As health-care consumers age, their health-related needs and their consumption of services escalate," Hulton said, "while their abilities to negotiate the complex health system decline. APNs (advanced practice nurses) are needed who can coordinate and manage care across a complex and fragmented health-services system."
JMU's new nurse educator program addresses a growing shortage of teachers both nationally and in the Shenandoah Valley, Hulton said, adding that Virginia has acknowledged that an inadequate number of nursing faculty is one of the major barriers to increasing enrollments, despite a pressing shortage of nurses.
"JMU's new master's in nursing education will help fill this need for nurse educators," she said.
Full- or part-time enrollment in the program is available and the Web-enhanced curriculum will lend itself to working nurses, said Hulton, who also noted that classes will meet one day per week.
Information on the master's program may be obtained by calling the JMU department of nursing at (540) 568-6314
