NJCU Partners With Create Innovative, One-year RN-BSN Program
January 19, 2016
NJCU PARTNERS WITH TWO COMMUNITY COLLEGES AND JERSEY CITY MEDICAL CENTER TO CREATE INNOVATIVE, ONE-YEAR RN-BSN PROGRAM
New Jersey City University (NJCU), Passaic County Community College (PCCC), Essex County College (ECC), and the Jersey City Medical Center (JCMC) have partnered to create an innovative, one-year RN-BSN program with a concurrent 900-hour, nursing residency component. The unique program will expand an ethnically-diverse, competent nursing workforce, increase access to quality health care, and transition ethnically-diverse nurses into community health settings.
The program is funded by a three-year, Workforce Diversity Grant for $897,000 awarded to NJCU from the Bureau of Health Professions of the Health Resources and Services Administration of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. This is the first such grant awarded to NJCU.
Through this enhanced program, students will partner with a preceptor at JCMC for intensive, hands-on clinical experience to ensure the graduation of more clinically-competent, bachelor’s degree-holding nurses. The program has a strong leadership and mentoring component and nursing students will have access to a comprehensive network of support services at NJCU. In addition, the 12-month program will allow highly-skilled graduates to enter the work force in less time while also beginning to address the nursing shortage projected for 2020.
All of the program partners serve ethnically-diverse and socioeconomically-disadvantaged populations; NJCU, JCMC, and ECC are all located in medically underserved areas.
Through this project, NJCU, which has been successful in implementing similar programs and has experienced significant growth in nursing enrollment over the past three years, will graduate 24 ethnically-diverse, B.S.N. degree-holding nurses who will assume positions in acute care facilities or in public/community health centers and help to diversify a nursing workforce that has been ethnically stagnant for many years.
To apply for the program or for further information contact Dr. Joyce Wright, coordinator of NJCU’s RN to BSN Program, atjwright@njcu.edu or the NJCU Department of Nursing at (201)200-3157.
