A pair of central New York educational institutions are hoping to make a dent in the nursing shortage by offering programs that broaden the pool of people who might want to make nursing a career, which officials say could grow the health care workforce by 20%.
SUNY Upstate and Cayuga Community College have started a partnership that will streamline nursing education and allow earlier graduation. There are two new programs. One is an accelerated bachelor of science in nursing program, which can be completed in three years. The other is aimed at people who already have a degree.
"It allows people who have already had a bachelor's, and may not have a career, to switch careers and in 16 months it becomes a bachelor's in nursing," said Upstate Medical University President Dr. Mantosh Dewan.
Getting more potential nurses in the pipeline is one way to ease a growing gap in the number of nurses available for jobs in New York. According to a State Department of Labor report this year, there will be more than 17,000 openings for nursing every year through 2032. The state currently graduates 10,000 nurses a year. Experts warn that gap will widen if structural problems, including shortages of training and enrollment caps continue. One way this new program can help is by addressing the issue of a lack of diversity, both in race and experience.
"A lot of different types of students who you wouldn't have seen before coming to this," said Tammy Austin Ketch, Dean of the Upstate College of Nursing. "We have an accelerated baccalaureate program, we have lawyers that are coming, accountants, psychologists looking to add nursing to their portfolio, that make their experiences that they bring to the classroom and bring to the clinical bedside very different than what we're used to traditionally seeing."
Cayuga Community College President Brian Durant said the school of nursing program is one of clearest pathways for job creation at his institution. And at a time when higher education is grappling with the impacts of AI on the job market, nursing and other health care professions become a more attractive option.
"It really gets to a point where I think people are mindful to say 'What will be recession proof? What will be technological proof? And what puts myself and my family in the best situation for generations to come?'," Durant said. "Obviously, we believe healthcare is one of them for now, and for the future."
The new degree programs will launch this fall.
