Nursing Practice Development center established
By John Koloen
Until recently, most schools of nursing have focused primarily on preparing students for careers as nurses. Nursing research tended to focus on improving patient care. Now places like UTMB’s School of Nursing have embraced the type of bench science associated previously with the biomedical sciences.
However, most nursing research continues to focus on innovations in patient care. To support clinical practice research activities, and to support education, the School of Nursing recently launched its version of a clinical practice enterprise staffed by nursing faculty.
In October, the School of Nursing, under the leadership of Dean Pamela G. Watson and Kathryn Fiandt, associate dean for clinical affairs, created the Center for Nursing Practice Development. Like the UTMB medical school’s Faculty Group Practice, the new center is designed to generate revenue by employing nursing faculty in clinical care as well as supporting the education and research missions of the school.
“What we’re doing is developing activities that generate clinical revenue by providing primary care for people who are medically complex and who face barriers to getting healthy,” Fiandt said. The center is targeting patients with chronic conditions that are difficult to manage, such as diabetes and obesity.
Initially, generating revenue is secondary to collecting data on patient outcomes.
“With good outcome data we feel we can go the insurance companies and demonstrate how we can reduce the cost of care to this patient population,” Fiandt said. “If through our interventions we can show a savings of even 10 percent, we think insurance companies will give us their business.”
In addition to insurance companies, Fiandt sees a future in developing worksite health care programs for small businesses. She expects to work closely with Galveston’s 3-Share Plan. This program divides the cost of health insurance premiums among employees, employers and government sources.
Fiandt said that nursing students would be able to expand their exposure to clinical practice through the new center. “Education is our core mission so we hope to have a strong inter-professional learning model in our practices. This will allow students throughout the UTMB community to work together in health care teams to provide the best level of care.”
Watson emphasizes the importance of developing and maintaining practices that are fiscally solvent and support the operation of the school through the generation of revenue.
“Nursing practices, which often provide care to the most needy, are usually able to achieve fiscal solvency through a mixture of reimbursement for services, grant support and gifts through foundations,” Watson said. “However, we are hoping to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of these practices to mainstream health care and to establish strong revenue sources from traditional health care payers.”