School of Nursing Awarded $2.57 Million Grant

July 13, 2023

Marian Tabi, Ph.D., Tiffany Keshwah, DNP, and Alan Skipper, DNP, faculty in the School of Nursing at Georgia Southern University, are the recipients of the 2023-2027 U.S. Department of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant valued at $2.57 million. The grant will provide funds to assist in enhancing and sustaining academic partnerships between Georgia Southern’s graduate nursing program and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) partners. This partnership will allow for additional primary care services to be provided to rural and underserved populations in Southeast Georgia by increasing the nurse practitioner provider workforce.

At a time when nearly every county in Georgia is facing a shortage in primary care providers, having the resources to provide health care services to more Georgia patients would ease provider shortages.

“This grant is a big win for the School of Nursing and most importantly, our nurse practitioner students who are often challenged finding clinical sites and preceptors for clinical training,” stated Tabi.

“Additionally, many of our nurse practitioner students face financial challenges when pursuing advanced education to impact provider shortage areas particularly in rural and underserved communities. Through this funding, some of these challenges will be eliminated to allow nurse practitioner students to complete their clinical training, which is a huge part of their academic preparation and certification.”
 

Tabi, Keshwah and Skipper designed this grant to specifically enhance academic-practice

partnerships with FQHCs in Southeast Georgia to allow for an increase in the number of clinical preceptors available to accommodate the Georgia Southern matriculated family nurse practitioners, adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioners and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner students which will help to prepare them to work in rural and underserved settings.