NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA), one of the nation’s leading healthcare providers, today announced more than $300 million in investments to support the education and training of nurses. This includes more than $200 million towards the expansion of Galen College of Nursing and approximately $136 million towards the opening of new HCA Healthcare Centers for Clinical Advancement.
“We believe supporting nurses in their practice through available and effective clinical education helps drive the delivery of high-quality patient care,” said Sam Hazen, chief executive officer of HCA Healthcare. “We are proud of the resources and education opportunities we offer our nurses and are committed to helping train the next generation.”
Since 2019, HCA Healthcare has invested approximately $46 million to open twelve new Centers for Clinical Advancement, bringing its current footprint to fifteen locations nationwide. The company recently committed an additional $90 million to open twenty additional centers over the next three years. HCA Healthcare’s Centers for Clinical Advancement are designed to bridge the gap between the classroom and bedside through practice-based instruction. The centers use leading technology and specialized manikins to simulate real-life scenarios nurses may experience at the bedside.
The Centers for Clinical Advancement operate independently from nursing schools and are dedicated to helping practicing nurses advance their skills and careers. New nursing graduates use the centers to complete their Nurse Residency program and choose specializations, while veteran nurses can use the centers to earn advanced certifications. As a part of the Nurse Residency program, new graduates complete classroom instruction and perform hands-on skills training utilizing high-fidelity immersive simulation within the centers. Technology within the centers also allows students to learn from clinical experts across the nation, if needed, and to record their simulations to play back scenarios and debrief with colleagues and trained facilitators to further advance their learning.
On April 18, HCA Healthcare celebrated the openings of its fourteenth and fifteenth Center for Clinical Advancement in Ogden and Draper, Utah. Across the country, HCA Healthcare has 68 classrooms, 65 simulation rooms, and more than 145 manikins.
“Expanding our clinical education agenda, including HCA Healthcare’s Centers for Clinical Advancement nationwide is a large part of our overall nursing strategy,” said Sammie Mosier, chief nurse executive of HCA Healthcare. “Providing a safe and realistic learning environment for our nurses promotes clinical skill readiness and development. We are excited to open these new locations and will continue to invest in our nurses as they provide great care for our patients and communities each and every day.”
Since the purchase of Galen College of Nursing in 2020, HCA Healthcare has committed more than $200 million towards the expansion of the college. Bringing Galen into the HCA Healthcare family was strategically designed to bring two leading nursing organizations together to increase access to nursing education and to provide nursing career development opportunities for HCA Healthcare colleagues. Today, more than 3,000 HCA Healthcare colleagues are enrolled at Galen College of Nursing to help advance their careers. Since joining HCA Healthcare, Galen College of Nursing has announced fourteen new campuses nationwide. There are now more than 12,000 students enrolled in Galen.
Separately, HCA Healthcare also recently announced a $34.5 million investment to expand Research College of Nursing in Kansas City, Missouri. This initiative will support the college’s expansion plans, including the development and building of a HCA Healthcare Center for Clinical Advancement, on the campus of Research Medical Center. A new 78,000-square-foot building will help to better serve the community’s current and future healthcare needs and support increased enrollment as well as faculty and staff. The building will feature a state-of-the-art patient simulation laboratory, technologically advanced classrooms to provide an engaging learning environment, innovative technology to allow students the ability to achieve nursing competencies and small group study spaces and areas to facilitate student and faculty collaboration. The project is expected to be completed in 2025, coinciding with the college’s 120-year anniversary.
HCA Healthcare has made other significant investments to support nurses and to educate the next generation of nursing leaders, including:
- HCA Healthcare offers tuition assistance benefits that allow eligible colleagues to complete the Galen College of Nursing RN-to-BSN program with zero out-of-pocket tuition expenses. In 2022, HCA Healthcare distributed $7.7 million to assist more than 2,250 colleagues in the program.
- To help address the national nursing shortage, HCA Healthcare has invested in the recruitment of quality nurses while also expanding care teams to include positions such as licensed practical/vocational nurses (LPN/LVNs), paramedics and nurse externs.
- In 2022, HCA Healthcare committed $1.5 million to Fisk University to support scholarships for students pursuing healthcare careers and the university’s dual degree program with Galen College of Nursing and $1.5 million to Florida International University’s Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences to expand its faculty, offer scholarships to increase enrollment and help address the national nursing shortage. A $750,000 partnership with the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was announced in 2022 to provide internship opportunities and scholarships for graduate students in nursing administration and management programs. These are part of the company’s larger $10 million commitment to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and help build a diverse healthcare pipeline.
- The HCA Healthcare Foundation, through its Healthier Tomorrow Fund, recently announced $250,000 in grants to community colleges and universities to provide high school students early access to careers in healthcare. As part of these grants, Miami Dade College received $50,000 towards its Care Cadre Nurse Exploration Experience and Pensacola State College received $50,000 to help fund the Nurse Explorer Boot Camp. Both programs will give students early exposure to careers in nursing.
- The HCA Healthcare Foundation, through its Healthier Tomorrow Fund, has also given $130,000 to the Urban League of Broward County to help pilot a workforce development program for those who have been disconnected from the workforce to explore careers in the healthcare field.
About HCA Healthcare
Nashville-based HCA Healthcare is one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare services comprising 180 hospitals and approximately 2,300 ambulatory sites of care, including surgery centers, freestanding ERs, urgent care centers, and physician clinics, in 20 states and the United Kingdom. With its founding in 1968, HCA Healthcare created a new model for hospital care in the United States, using combined resources to strengthen hospitals, deliver patient-focused care and improve the practice of medicine. HCA Healthcare has conducted a number of clinical studies, including one that demonstrated that full-term delivery is healthier than early elective delivery of babies and another that identified a clinical protocol that can reduce bloodstream infections in ICU patients by 44%. HCA Healthcare is a learning health system that uses its more than 37 million annual patient encounters to advance science, improve patient care and save lives. Please click here to connect with HCA Healthcare on social media.
All references to “Company,” “HCA” and “HCA Healthcare” as used throughout this document refer to HCA Healthcare, Inc. and its affiliates.
