UMKC launches Rural Nurse Initiative

Linda Ford, RN, MBA, LMHC, Ph.D., came to Kansas as a travel nurse and quickly fell in love with the rural nursing practice in Hutchinson, Kan.

“Promise Regional Medical Center is family,” Ford said.

Ford became vice president of patient care services at the hospital last November. She fills a void seen in many rural health care settings.

JoAnn Klaassen, RN, MN, JD, director of the University of Missouri- Kansas City School of Nursing’s Rural Nurse Initiative, said the need for nurses in rural areas remains high.

“The other issue out in rural areas is we don’t have the specialization. We don’t have the psych nurses, we don’t have the pedes nurses,” Klaassen said.

To help solve this problem, UMKC launched its Rural Nurse Initiative. The program, which received a $1.75 million grant, aims to increase the number of baccalaureate-level nurses in rural areas.

Klaassen said the university will provide laptops and broadband service to rural nurses who enroll in the school’s RN to BSN program.

“We hope to bring the rural nurses into our program and integrate them with our urban nurses,” Klaassen said. “We are excited about it.”

Technology will allow UMKC faculty and students to interact with rural students through the Internet.

UMKC will enroll its first group of nurses in the Rural Nurse Initiative this fall. The program targets rural areas in Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.

Participants in the initiative do not have to travel to participate in the degree program.

“Our intent is to let them be where they are in their communities,” Klaassen said.

UMKC’s Rural Nurse Initiative encourages rural nurses to consider more advanced degrees after they receive a bachelor’s degree.

“There is a huge shortage of nurse practitioners in rural areas,” Klaassen said.

Ford said most of the nurses she works with in Hutchinson are not bachelor’s prepared. Promise Regional Medical Center serves residents in Reno County and surrounding areas.

“I always promote education because that has opened so many doors for me,” Ford said. “You experience things differently than if you had not gone on to a higher degree.”

Ford said she thinks nurses from Promise Regional will be interested in UMKC’s Rural Nurse Initiative.

Klaassen said she hopes to start the program with 50 rural nurses.

“It’s a pretty aggressive target, but we’ll also be marketing aggressively here in a couple of weeks,” Klaassen said.

UMKC will receive federal grant money for the program for three years. Klaassen said she hopes to make the program self sustaining by the time the grant funds run out.

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