Project Title: Closing the Gaps in Acute Care Nursing Applicant Organization Name: University of the Incarnate Word Address: 4301 Broadway Street, San Antonio, Texas 78209 Project Director Name: Yvonne Davila, EdD. MSN RN CNE Contact Phone Numbers (Voice, Fax): 210-283-3289; 210-829-3174 Email Address: yadavila@uiwtx.edu Website Address: www.uiw.edu Funding Preference: Substantially Benefits Underserved Populations; Texas Nursing Shortage Area Total funding requested: $ 1,049,408.00 Closing the Gaps in Acute Care Nursing (C-GAP) is an academic-practice partnership between University of the Incarnate Word Ila Faye Miller School of Nursing and Health Professions (UIW) and Texas Vista Medical Center (TVMC), an emerging academic-medical center located in the South sector of Bexar County Texas, a designated medically underserved area. C-GAP will train UIW Accelerated BSN students from social and economic disadvantaged background and TVMC acute care RN (MUC champions) to advance the health of patients, families, and communities. By strengthening skills and knowledge capacity of the underrepresented racial and ethnic minority BSN students, the C-GAP long-term impact is the ability of nursing workforce gains to provide culturally sensitive care and improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable populations. The C-GAP objectives include: 1. Establish an academic-practice partnership following the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) guidance between UIW and TVMC to implement innovative education and training models to produce 44 BSN students, as ‘ready-to-practice’ RNs, from disadvantaged backgrounds and 22 practicing TVMC RNs as medically underserved population champions (MUC champions). 2. Review and update the concept-based and population health BSN curriculum to further develop the didactic in acute care nursing courses for delivery of culturally sensitive care, addressing SDOH, health equity and health literacy with matching TVMC
clinical experience emphasizing leadership, communication, and critical thinking within the technological and collaborative practice environment. 3. Through the academic-practice partnership, initiate collaborative interprofessional care teams consisting of UIW’s medical residents, BSN students, physical therapy, pharmacy, nutrition, community education, members of the TVMC health care team \ and the MUC champions. The aim of team meetings is improving health outcomes for the patients and populations served by TVMC. The team performance measures include monthly interprofessional care team meetings in FY2 and FY3 and a minimum of 3 team-based Quality Improvement projects in FY3. UIW and TVMC understand the challenges facing the healthcare system, from workforce shortages to ‘siloed’ professional practices to poor health outcomes among our medically- underserved communities. The C-GAP initiative intends to ‘see the gap – define the gap – design processes to reduce the gap – and celebrate the successes ’one client at a time.