In December 2008, six employees of Oregon State Hospital graduated from Portland Community College with nursing degrees, two more are currently in a nursing program at Clackamas Community College, and six employees will begin the program at Portland Community College in the spring.
The employees are part of the N2K Nursing Education Program, a collaboration among the Oregon Health Career Center, nursing programs and hospitals, to address the state's nursing shortage.
According to the Oregon Center for Nursing, by 2025, 41 percent of currently licensed RNs are expected to retire. Oregon State Hospital, or OSH, is working toward lowering its nursing vacancy rate from 22 percent to 10 percent this year. Nancy Frantz-Geddes, director of OSH Nursing Services, noted that OSH's rate is running at 12 percent.
Participating hospitals pay for tuition, which currently costs between $25,000 and $30,000, and in exchange the employees return as nurses for an agreed-upon number of months.
Students are chosen based on having completed pre-requisites for a nursing program, tenure, supervisor recommendation and the capacity to work and go to school concurrently. "It's a pretty rigorous selection process," Frantz-Geddes said.
At the same time, there is "cooperation up and down the chain," she said. OSH, as with the program's other hospital participants, allows for flexible work schedules during the fast-tracked 18-month RN program. "You have to come to the program with the capacity to work and go to school," she said. "You need a rigorous support system in and out of the hospital."
As program participants, the employees benefit by not having to compete in a lottery system for the limited number of slots in the nursing programs, said Frantz-Geddes. This is critical given the number of students declined for nursing programs because of the current nursing faculty shortage, she said.
Patricia Feeny, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Human Services, said that the N2K Nursing Education Program is an innovative solution to "grow our own staff."
As for the six recent graduates, they were identified as the top performers in their cohort of 20 and are "the best cohort of students we've worked with," Frantz-Geddes said.