TULSA, Okla. — Saint Francis Health System and Rogers State University are partnering to educate nursing students at Saint Francis.
“There’s been a nursing shortage for many years,” said Saint Francis Health System Chief Nursing Officer Cindy Leathers.
Saint Francis will serve as an extended campus of RSU which will be funded for its first three years by a grant from the William K. Warren Foundation.
“The students that choose to be at Saint Francis, they’ll do all of their classroom work along with their lab clinicals and their clinicals in our patient units,” said Leathers.
Saint Francis is renovating a 6,000 square foot area inside the hospital that will house the state-of-the-art simulation center. It will include four high-fidelity simulation suites designed to replicate Saint Francis inpatient rooms.
The Saint Francis extended campus will allow Saint Francis to recruit and retain future nurses. It will also allow Rogers State University to expand its nursing graduates by more than 50%. They’ll accept an extra 32 students a year.
“They’ve had to turn away qualified applicants because they didn’t have room for everyone and I think having that here will really remedy that problem,” said RSU Nursing Student Raechel Litterell.
Leathers say the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be a shortage of 276,000 nurses by 2030.
“If we’re short nurses, we’ll have to close beds and then we won’t be able to meet the needs of our community,” said Leathers.
Saint Francis Health System says they need to hire more than 600 nurses each year to account for retirements and future growth.
For more information visit rsu.edu/bsn
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