OTC, CoxHealth launch nursing shortage fix

Ozarks Technical Community College and CoxHealth are partnering to help address the area’s critical nursing shortage.

The partnership is the latest in a series designed to face down the problem. CoxHealth announced in June it was recruiting 100 overseas nurses, and last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a $230,000 grant to help grow enrollment of nursing students at Southwest Baptist University. Mercy Springfield Communities, too, is hiring additional nurses.

The CoxHealth partnership with OTC establishes an associate of science in nursing program at the community college’s Table Rock campus in Hollister, according to a news release.

Starting in fall 2017, the program would have the capacity to produce 24 nursing graduates per year who would then be eligible to take an exam to become registered nurses.

CoxHealth contributed an undisclosed amount of financing toward the project so OTC can add additional science labs and offices for nursing faculty. Currently, the Hollister campus only offers a practical nursing program, according to the release.

“Our continued growth and ever-increasing demand for more nurses has outpaced the ability of the other fine local colleges and universities to meet the need,” CoxHealth President and CEO Steve Edwards said in the release. “This addition will mean much to our community, especially in Branson.”

At OTC’s Springfield campus, the college offers hybrid and seated associate of science in nursing programs, which graduate roughly 50 students annually.

Organizations have stepped up recruitment and hiring efforts after a 2015 Missouri Hospital Association report found an estimated need of 117 registered nurses per year through 2022 in the seven-county Ozark Workforce Investment Area. The turnover rate in the region is 17.4 percent, nearly two percentage points higher than the state average.