Our region’s nurses performed heroically throughout the past year when our community has never needed them more. They responded to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic and shouldered the burden of long hours in the midst of a statewide nursing shortage.

To ensure the professional advancement of today’s nurses and develop the next generation of care givers, Florida’s public nursing educators must address how we educate our nurses and expand access to our programs. Our state has an effective public nursing education system, with the technical colleges, state colleges and universities each filling a role in a seamless pathway from entry level to advanced degrees:

• Technical Colleges – Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN), Medical Assistants (CNA)
• State Colleges – LPN to Registered Nurse (RN), RN, and the RN to Bachelor of Science Nursing
• Universities – traditional BSN, Master of Science Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice

The current system does not duplicate effort or award credit that does not transfer to the next educational level, but it provides limited on-ramps to the continuum of nursing education, limited mechanisms for acceleration, limited access to affordable high-quality programs and faces gaps in the pipeline that feed the next level of academic advancement.

The nursing shortage exists at every level – from CNAs to LPNs to RNs to nurses with advanced degrees needed to teach in the education continuum. A shortage anywhere in the nursing pipeline creates a shortage everywhere.

To address meeting the nursing demand in Florida, State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, participated in a work group last spring with its Florida College System partners. Florida’s state colleges graduate more than 4,000 registered nurses each year. The working group developed the Integrated and Aligned Model to address the limitations of the current nursing education model while retaining vitally important seamless career pathways for students.

The IAM envisions a collaborative approach with district high schools, technical colleges and state colleges. The long-term solution to the nursing shortage is to create multiple opportunities for advancement within the field that will serve student aspirations, patient care needs and the need for nursing educators now and in the future.  

In partnership with high schools, state colleges could provide pre-nursing dual enrollment and college credit certificates to enhance student preparedness and accelerate entry into a registered nursing program by meeting prerequisites before graduating from high school. In partnership with a technical college, the state college could offer remediation, concurrent enrollment and college credit certificates to enhance preparedness and accelerate progression toward completing the ASN with the FCS institution while a student completes a health sciences career certificate at the technical college.

Co-located programs would support student progression and resource sharing by offering aligned programs in the same location. All these efforts lead to an ASN degree that is seamlessly transferable as nurses move through their careers.

The model offered by the technical colleges in proposed legislation this year offers a pathway for LPN students to become registered nurses but fails to retain the invaluable seamless transfer component and is a costly duplication of existing public options. Working together, technical and state colleges can develop pathways from other health science programs into the nursing profession, increasing the number of nurses at all levels.

For more information about SCF’s role in the IAM please contact Brian Thomas at 941-752-5392 or thomasb1@scf.edu.

The FCS Integrated and Aligned Model guides a collaborative effort to address Florida’s nursing shortage at all levels by expanding the best of what each institution offers to ensure the educational and career opportunities of our nurses and to preserve high quality healthcare for our community.

Dr. Carol Probstfeld is President of State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota.