Community project funding/congressionally directed spending - construction - address: 7777 s. May avenue, oklahoma city, OK 73159 project director: DR

Kathy j. Wheat, dean of health professions contact phone numbers: 405-682-1611 x 7209 website: https://WWW.occc.EDU/faculty/health-professions total requested funding: $487,000 this project directly addresses the shortage of technically skilled nursing providers in oklahoma. The oklahoma city metropolitan area is home to a number of large-scale medical systems - including the university of oklahoma medical center (773 beds), oklahoma heart hospitals (141 beds), saint anthony hospital (700 beds), mercy hospital system (more than 300 beds), and several integris hospital locations (more than 1000 beds). The proposed project will serve all demographic, socioeconomic groups in the state of oklahoma. The abovementioned medical systems are just a few examples of the many which serve the state's large metropolitan areas. However, there are several dozens of local rural hospitals and branches of larger hospital systems without complete access to state-of-the-art equipment. The vast majority of these health care providers provide medical care that involves skilled allied health professionals, and occc is working hard to meet demand for workforce. In many instances, nursing clinical placements in rural counties do not provide nursing students with access to current technology. This proposed project addresses this dire need by purchasing and making available current technology in the healthcare field. The healthcare industry has experienced a nurse shortage, in varying degrees, in most geographic areas of the united states since 1998. In oklahoma; which currently ranks 46TH in the nation for registered nurses (RNS) per capita, the nursing shortage continues to be exacerbated by remnants of the covid-19 pandemic. The nursing shortage must be counteracted to ensure the health of the nation, stability of healthcare delivery systems, and future growth of the nursing workf orce. Increasing the number of nursing school graduates in the united states is a key strategy for alleviating this nurse shortage. The number of RNS needed to meet OK's workforce demands are projected to increase 9.1% by 2028. Oklahoma's state system of higher education; and particularly oklahoma city community college, (occc) plays a significant role in addressing the state's current nursing shortage though associate degree in nursing (ADN) and bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) production. While state system institutions enrolled 15,074 students in degree programs leading to RN licensure eligibility and produced over 2,423 ADN and BSN graduates during the 2020-21 academic year, OK works notes that current nursing education capacity does not meet demand in oklahoma. Occc requested support to facilitate nursing education and program expansion in order to address oklahoma's healthcare workforce shortages, which will improve health outcomes for all oklahomans. An overarching goal is to increase capacity in the occc nursing program which will ultimately result in increasing graduates to address labor shortages in oklahoma an indeed throughout the nation. Objectives include the aggressive recruitment of students to the nursing program and an increase in critical equipment and technologies for use in the education of nursing students. Occc's rigorous and innovative program provides accessible academic offerings for students while meeting rapidly changing workforce development needs. Most courses offer a very small student to faculty ratio, provide individualized attention and tailored learning. Relative to national certification exams, occc consistently outperforms state and national benchmarks for student success, with more than 95% of employers surveyed reporting that they were satisfied with the performance of our students in the workplace.