Queen's plans expansion of nursing institute

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer

The Queen's Medical Center today will announce a $2.5 million endowment for an expanded nursing institute designed to ease a growing nursing shortage by helping to recruit and retain more of the healthcare professionals.

The Queen Emma Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Queen's, is providing a five-year endowment of $500,000 per year, according to Barbara Mathews, vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer for Queen's.

Mathews said the main focus of the Queen Emma Nursing Institute will be to "develop strategies to recruit and sustain a well-educated nursing workforce."

Mathews said Queen's also is committing $1 million a year for five years to continue a separate effort to provide specialized training for registered nurses.

For the past three years, Queen's has offered specialty training for certain in-demand specialties, including critical care, emergency, oncology and surgical nursing.

She said such training already has helped to recruit men and women into these fields.

"It's a wonderful retention tool for our current staff because they can change specialties mid-career."

Hawai'i hospitals are recruiting on the Mainland as well as locally because schools here have not been able to train enough nurses to keep up with the growing demand.

In a recent Hawai'i Medical Journal article, professor Barbara Molina Kooker of the University of Hawai'i-Manoa reported that the mean age of the state's practicing nurses is 48.7 years, up from under 45 in 1997.

Kooker's study indicated that many nurses intend to retire around age 63, which points to a growing shortage in the next 15 years.

"We're looking over the next few years at a significant nursing shortage," Mathews said.

A specialized nursing center will help the community, she said, because there will be a continued supply of highly educated nurses.

She expects to hire a director by this summer and link to UH-Manoa though shared staff members who teach at UH and work at the institute, helping to bridge the gap between education and practice.

Expanding the institute with staff and resources will provide an opportunity "to actually hire our own in-house experts to develop these initiatives, nursing practices and research," Mathews said.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at 535-2429 or rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.