School of Nursing awarded funds through BCBS Foundation’s Collective Impact Grant program

The Loyola University New Orleans School of Nursing was awarded a $395,213 grant through the BCBS Foundation's Collective Impact Grant program. These funds supported the Increasing Preceptor Capacity program.

Approximately 80% of Louisiana parishes are designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) due to either location or having a high percentage of low-income residents. Health professional shortage issues are an access to care barrier, and the shortage is slated to only worsen, especially in the South. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to see a shortage of approximately a million nurses nationwide by 2024.

Locally, this shortage has been further spotlighted by the state's recent Medicaid expansion, which justly has allowed for more than 433,000 previously uninsured men and women to have healthcare coverage. Many of these newly covered individuals are getting routine preventive care for the first time and because of expansion, Louisiana's uninsured rate dropped from 21.7% in 2013, to currently below 12.5%; one of the largest reductions for any state.

Increasing preceptor capacity in Louisiana not only benefits students but works to address the healthcare provider shortages in communities where healthcare access is a struggle. Support from the BCBS Foundation provided the School of Nursing with the resources to hire dedicated personnel to develop partnerships with providers to precept across the state, with a focus on Terrebonne, Lafourche, Calcasieu, and other parishes designated as HPSA, and award scholarship funds to aid graduate-level nursing students.

As a result, Loyola's School of Nursing will have increased the number of preceptors available throughout the state to work with our students from 106 to 176, created a database to help nursing students find preceptors, and provided scholarships to nursing students to support the completion of their education. The program also established new preceptor sites within the state.