Recent reporting from CBS Austin takes a deep dive into Texas’ nursing shortage and THOT-supported legislation to help address it.
Senate Bill 2059, by Sen. Juan Hinojosa, was reported favorably to the Senate Committee on Education by the Subcommittee on Higher Education. The bill would add critical funding for nursing training programs to increase the number of nurses in the workforce and help retain current nurses.
Clinical Training Opportunities
SB 2059 would address the nursing workforce shortage by increasing and enhancing clinical training opportunities. It would support clinical grant funding for nursing training programs that will improve the state’s ability to train and retain more nurses by increasing the clinical training opportunities needed for schools to accept and graduate nursing students.
Nursing students spend about one-third of their education learning clinical skills, and a lack of funding for this clinical training creates a bottleneck for nurses to enter the workforce.
“About a third of [nursing students’] time is in a clinical site, so if you can’t move them into clinical sites for the training they need in order to graduate and to be able to care for patients, you can’t graduate those nurses,” said Maureen Milligan, president and CEO, Teaching Hospitals of Texas in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education.
THOT Recommendations
SB2059 includes many of THOT’s recommended investments:
- Fund preceptor pay differentials at clinical sites to increase the number of preceptors needed to expand clinical site capacity.
- Create and fund nursing innovation and coordination grants for clinical sites, including hospitals and health systems, and increase funding for workplace violence prevention.
- Create and fund clinical nurse faculty grant programs.
Watch the news clip and read more here.
