Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention - Transition to Practice Program - Gardner Webb University’s Hunt School of Nursing (HSON) proposes the Nursing Upskilling, Retention, Simulation, and Education—Strengthening Training Pathways to Advancement to Improve Health for Rural North Carolina Communities (NURSE-STAR or STAR) project to expand and strengthen the nursing workforce serving rural and medically vulnerable communities. Rural counties in western North Carolina experience persistent shortages of practice ready nurses, limited access to primary and preventive care, high burdens of chronic disease, and avoidable emergency utilization. STAR addresses these needs by implementing a comprehensive, evidence-based training model aligned with NEPQR-TPP priorities. STAR will establish a grow your own nursing pathway that recruits licensed and unlicensed assistive health personnel from rural and medically vulnerable communities and awards prior learning credit to accelerate progression into the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program. The project will integrate competency-based education across four BSN courses and expand simulation-based education through new high-fidelity manikins and wearable technology, an improved standardized patient program, and four new rural-focused simulation experiences. Students will complete 100 additional experiential hours—75 clinical and 25 simulation—in rural and community based settings to strengthen readiness for practice in nontraditional environments. A year long community of practice for novice nurses will support transition to practice through professional development and structured mentoring, while faculty and preceptor development will sustain capacity in simulation, competency-based education, and rural nursing workforce preparation. The STAR project introduces an innovative mobile health clinic model in which BSN and doctor of nursing practice students collaboratively design, staff, deliver, and evaluate a free, short-term medical, dental, and vision clinic in rural communities, providing practice-ready training while expanding access to care. The project will serve BSN students enrolled in HSON, with an emphasis on learners from rural areas and medically vulnerable communities, including those with prior health experience. Expected outcomes include an expanded nursing pathway for assistive health personnel seeking to upskill, enhanced readiness for and persistence in rural, community-based practice in nontraditional settings, and improvements in institutional capacity to support the expansion of the nursing workforce in medically vulnerable communities. STAR’s evaluation plan will measure performance using competency rubrics, objective structured clinical examination style assessments, simulation checklists, clinical evaluations, and quarterly continuous quality improvement reviews. Through these integrated strategies, STAR will increase the supply of practice ready nurses, improve access to community based care, and advance health equity in rural North Carolina, directly fulfilling the goals of the HRSA NEPQR-TPP program.
