The Department of Health and Human Services late Thursday announced awards of $100 million to grow the nursing workforce through career pipelines, additional faculty and specific resources for sectors outside post-acute care.
The Health Resources and Services Administration grants are intended to address increasing demand for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and nurse faculty.
“Nurses are an essential part of our nation’s health care system,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in a press release announcing the awards. “Now more than ever, we need to double down on our investments in nurses who care for communities across the country.”
But the awards did not provide specific support for entry-level nursing positions, such as the certified nurse aides that are the backbone of the skilled nursing sector. Nursing homes lost more than 200,000 frontline workers during COVID, and the sector remains behind all others when it comes to refilling those positions, the American Health Care Association has reported. The sector could need an estimated 190,000 additional workers to help meet an expected federal staffing minimum.
Earlier this summer, HHS also announced a new, $15 million to entice nurses, clinicians and other staff to frontline roles in pediatrics. But no such funding has been offered to the skillled nursing sector.
“Nurses are the frontline in delivering life-saving care and in keeping all of us healthy and well,” said HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson. “Today’s investments from the Health Resources and Services Administration demonstrate our ongoing commitment to supporting the nursing workforce, training and growing the next generation of nurses, creating career ladders for nurses, and recognizing the critical role nurses play in primary care, mental healthcare, and maternal healthcare.”
The announcement outlined the following awards:
- $8.7 million to help Licensed Practical Nurses become Registered Nurses: through the Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention-Pathway to Registered Nurse Program. It trains licensed practical nurses and licensed vocational nurses to become registered nurses. RNs are needed in every nursing homes, but they have become harder to hire in a strapped labor market where acute care and other providers often offer higher salaries and more flexible schedules.
- $26.5 million for addressing bottlenecks in nurse training through the Nurse Faculty Loan Program for award recipient schools to provide low-interest loans and loan cancellation to incentivize careers as nursing school faculty.
$64.8 million for the Advanced Nursing Education Workforce Program and the Advanced Nursing Education-Nurse Practitioner Residency and Fellowship Program, which will increase the number of primary care nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, and certified nurse midwives trained and prepared to provide primary care services, mental health and substance use disorder care, and/or maternal health care.
