Nursing students who are enrolled in Mercy College of Health Sciences’ Bachelor of Science in Nursing program will receive more hands-on clinical experience in community-based settings in Central Iowa through a $1.79 million grant the college received recently. The four-year grant funds a new initiative called the Community Advocacy Registered Nurse Education (CARE) project. 

The college applied for the competitive federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration because it recognized the need to provide more experience in community care settings to augment the BSN program’s primary focus of preparing nurses for acute-care hospital settings, said Nancy Kertz, dean of the School of Nursing. 

“We’re seeing a shift in the health care industry from that acute care setting to community-based care,” she said. “So as we see that shift, we want to ensure that our registered nurses and students are prepared for that type of practice.” 

Among the initiative’s goals is increasing the number of Mercy nursing graduates who choose to work in these types of primary care practices. Every student in Mercy’s BSN program — which has about 180 graduates annually — will participate in the CARE program. 

The college is partnering with the Free Clinics of Iowa and public health departments in Boone, Dallas, Jasper, Polk, Story and Warren counties as practice partnership sites to provide exposure to clinics in both urban and rural settings. 

“In addition to that, we will also have a community outreach network to provide additional training and resources to registered nurses that work in the communities that are interested in this community-based primary care focus,” she said. 

The types of practical experiences that the nursing students will get include giving immunizations, assisting in chronic disease prevention, conducting home health visits, and participating in mental health and substance abuse prevention programs in high schools, Kertz said.