UTEP produced a 28 percent increase in nursing graduates last year, and as a reward the state is giving the school more money to keep up the progress, said Dr. Robert Anders, dean of the nursing school.
"We've got such a huge (nursing) shortage, we're really tasked to try to increase graduates as much as we can," Anders said.
The University of Texas at El Paso will receive more than $385,000 from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board this year to help increase the number of nurses it produces each year.
The money will come from the coordinating board's Nursing Shortage Reduction Program, which rewards schools that significantly increase the number of nurses who graduate.
Only one other nursing program in the state, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, received more money than UTEP this year.
Ed Buchanan, accountability program director at the coordinating board, said lawmakers created the fund to give schools an incentive to graduate more nurses.
Texas is facing a nursing shortage statewide, and officials expect 70,000 positions will be unfilled by 2020.
Schools started getting money from the program about four years
ago, he said.
And in 2007, lawmakers set aside $7.3 million for the program.
"It's directed toward expanding the institutions' ability to generate nursing graduates," Buchanan said.
In El Paso, Anders said, the need for nurses is especially acute because of the city's growing population and the expansion of Fort Bliss. Within five years, he said, local health officials project the community will need another 2,300 nurses.
"That's a huge number," Anders said. "I just really worry if we're going to be able to do that. We're probably going to have to bring people in."
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso and UTEP are both working to graduate more nurses and to get them out of classrooms and at the bedside quickly.
UTEP is receiving incentive money from the state because it saw a nearly 30 percent increase in nursing graduates between the 2006-2007 school year and the 2007-2008 school year.
Anders said the money would be used to hire more faculty and to increase pay for existing faculty so that the program can recruit and educate even more nurses.
The school is also planning to expand its accelerated programs, he said.
"We'll be a little bit innovative in trying this new approach," Anders said.
An existing program that allows students who already have a bachelor's degree to complete the nursing program in 15 months will be compacted to 12 months.
Students with associate degrees from community colleges, starting next year, will also be eligible for the fast-track program.
And, Anders said, UTEP is in the process of getting final approval for a new program that will allow licensed vocational nurses to earn a bachelor's in nursing.
Patricia Andry, who is in the U.S. Army Enlisted Commissioning Program, said she came to El Paso specifically for UTEP's fast-track nursing program.
She already had a bachelor's degree in psychology and biological sciences from the University of Mobile in Alabama.
Andry said she wanted to become a nurse because the work is rewarding and because it can provide an array of experiences.
And she wanted to get to work quickly, so she said she came to El Paso. Her classes started at UTEP in May, and Andry said she is set to graduate in August.
"The sooner I'm done," she said, "the sooner I'll get my commission and become an Army nurse."
Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom@elpasotimes.com;
512-479-6606.
By the numbers
Texas' nursing shortage, by the numbers
# 20,000: Estimated number of unfilled nursing positions in Texas in 2007
# 70,000: Estimated number of unfilled nursing positions in Texas by 2020
# 2,300: Projected number of additional nurses needed in El Paso by 2013
# 184: Number of nurses who graduated from UTEP in the 2006-2007 school year.
# 286: Number of nurses who graduated from UTEP in the 2007-2008 school year.
# $385,582: amount of money UTEP will get for faculty to educate more nurses.
Source: University of Texas at El Paso and Dr. Robert Anders, dean of UTEP's school of nursing.
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