Aiming to increase the pipeline of new nurses to bolster a strained workforce, Tulane University is launching a nursing program in fall 2024 that plans to enroll more than 200 students yearly.
“Louisiana and the nation are in dire need of nurses, especially with the toll the pandemic took on the profession,” Dr. Lee Hamm, Tulane’s Senior Vice President and Dean of the School of Medicine, said in a statement.
The school will award a bachelor of science degree in nursing over an accelerated timeline, with students completing the degree over 16 continuous months. Students will need to have at least 60 credit hours of undergraduate work completed, including prerequisite courses, or already have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, said Brenda Douglas, the program’s new dean of nursing.
The program aims to attract students from all over the country to help meet the state Board of Regents’ goal of doubling the city’s nurses by 2030 to improve health outcomes.
“In order to improve the city and the region's health, you recognize what the shortfalls are,” said Douglas. “And one of the shortfalls is that we need more nurses at the bedside.”
Louisiana’s nursing shortage
In Louisiana, the state Board of Regents estimates there will be a shortage of approximately 6,000 registered nurses — about 40% of demand — by 2030.
At the same time, the number of students admitted to nursing programs in Louisiana dropped by 8% in 2020 from the year prior, according to data analyzed by the commission.
Tulane Medical Center is seen at 1415 Tulane Avenue in New Orleans on Monday, October 10, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Earlier this year, Ochsner Health, Louisiana’s largest health system, had more than 800 open nursing positions, roughly 9% of its workforce. Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System and LCMC Health had over 500 open positions each.
Growing nursing programs
Tulane joins a number of institutions trying to fill the shortage with new programs. There are at least 17 other nursing schools within a 100-mile radius, many of them with new programs and buildings to entice students.
Ochsner and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette created a partnership for an accelerated nursing program that will launch with an estimated 70 students in May 2024.
Delgado Community College and Ochsner Health completed a $44 million building to house a new nursing and school and allied health school equipped to train 1,500 students earlier this year.
LSU Health New Orleans announced a nurse midwives program in October. The school also received over $1 million federal dollars to attract diverse students to the nursing profession.
Loyola University New Orleans began a 17-month program for nursing earlier this year.
Despite the number of newly available programs, the Tulane program is already getting a lot of interest. Details were announced Friday, Dec. 15. By the following Monday, over 100 inquiries had come in, said Douglas.
Learning alongside other professions
Set to begin in fall 2024, the program will initially be housed in the Tulane University School of Medicine’s Murphy Building, 131 S. Robertson St., before moving to its permanent location at the renovated Tulane Medical Center building on Tulane Avenue as part of the city's planned downtown biomedical district.
The nursing program will fall under the School of Medicine, a somewhat unique placement that sets it apart from other nursing schools, said Douglas. In simulations with high-tech, responsive mannequins or actors pretending to be patients, nursing students will learn alongside medical students.
“Our health care providers, regardless who they are, need to be able to communicate with each other effectively and be understood,” said Douglas. “A big part of that is students learning how to communicate with each other.”
Some of the program will be online, and students will also spend hundreds of hours in clinical settings at local hospitals.
The school is also looking into partnerships with hospitals for graduating nurses to receive financial aid in exchange for a commitment to work after graduation, though the details are not yet hashed out, said Douglas.
