2015 has been another successful year for the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Nursing and Health Studies.
The school was awarded more than $8.81million in federal grants this year, following up more than $12.5 million in 2014. This comes in an era when funding is much more elusive than years past.
“The diversity of grants reflects the expanding scope of practice for the nursing workforce, interprofessional education and practice, and for providers and patients who access preventive and health services,” said Ann Cary, dean of the UMKC School of Nursing and Health Studies. “The school provides affordable education for nurses and health sciences graduates to improve patient and population care in the Kansas City area and nationwide.”
The largest grant in 2015 was for $2.5 million to form KC HealthTracks to create improved STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum and experiences for students from 11 under-resourced Kansas City area high schools. A collaboration with the UMKC School of Computing and Engineering and KC STEM Alliance, the goal is to prepare students for higher education and career paths in healthcare.
Another large grant was $2.28 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the continuation of the National Clinical Training Center for Family Planning, one of three national training centers based at the school that educate health-care providers on best practices in their fields. The other two centers are the National HIV Prevention Capacity Building Assistance Provider Network Resource Center and the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network Coordinating Office.
The school also received a $1.48 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration for interprofessional teams of graduate nursing and social work students caring for rural, medically underserved patients in northwest Missouri.
Other grants include collaborative research, education and practice with oral care and pharmacy educators and providers as well as with other schools of nursing in multisite arenas.
The remainder of the grants are going toward student scholarships to encourage diversity as well as faculty research.
Also in 2015, U.S. News and World Report ranked the UMKC School of Nursing and Health Studies in the Top 20 (No. 18), the highest of any Missouri or Kansas public universities, for its online graduate programs. It also was named to the U.S. News and World Report’s “10 Cheapest Online Graduate Nursing Programs for Out-of-State Students.” (No. 10). This article rated the affordability of graduate programs for out-of-state students at the Top 10 schools.
The largest grant in 2014 was a $7 million grant to establish the National HIV Prevention Capacity Building Assistance Provider Network Resource Center.