Binghamton University Decker School of Nursing Receives Grant to Train Nurse Practitioners to Work in Rural Areas

Binghamton University’s Decker School of Nursing has received a $2.8 million federal grant to provide financial support for nurse practitioner students who will be trained to work in rural areas after graduating. The Health Resources & Services Administration’s (HRSA) Advanced Nursing Education Workforce (ANEW) program awarded the funding. 

HRSA has provided the funding in an effort to increase the number of advanced practice nurses trained as primary care providers in rural and underserved areas. HRSA also awarded the Decker School of Nursing with $1.2 million in 2017, which the school used to launch its ANEW scholars program.

The new grant will provide $700,000 annually for four years and the school will use that money to provide tuition assistance for up to two groups of 24 students each. The students will also receive advanced technology and a variety of clinical tools and software aimed at providing them with the foundations for telehealth. The Decker School also intends to establish an advisory council composed of representatives from the community who are working in telehealth.

The ANEW scholars program supports students in Decker’s family nurse practitioner program who are from rural areas and wish to practice in those underserved areas once they are credentialed. Students selected to participate in the ANEW scholars program must be from areas with a designated rural status of 4 or higher as defined by the US Department of Agriculture. Students are matched with rural healthcare sites within their communities where they provide supervised patient care while working with a clinical preceptor.

Telehealth is also built into the curriculum for the ANEW scholars because it has become an increasingly important tool for rural providers. Rural areas require telehealth due to a lack of specialized healthcare providers and because of the “difficulties” that patients face when they are forced to travel long distances to seek care for health problems.

To learn more about the $2.8 million federal grant given to the Binghamton University Decker School of Nursing to provide financial support for nurse practitioner students who will be trained to work in rural areas after graduating, visit here.