Development and Implementation of a Tri-State Nurse Anesthesia Program for Underserved and Diverse Populations

Purpose and Rationale: A tri-state nurse anesthesia program (TNAP) for underserved and diverse populations was developed between the following clinical education sites: New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. These clinical education sites are located in underserved and diversely populated regions of this tri-state area. This TNAP project was developed in response to a lack of educational programs for MSN prepared nurse anesthetists and a critical shortage on Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs). Two foci of the clinical education model are: education of diverse, culturally competent and sensitive health professionals and improve access to underserved populations in rural and urban areas with poor access to this specialized care. The external influences for development of the TNAP project in this tri-state region were: Critical linkage in the solution to access to quality health care, CRNA shortage, lack of qualified nurse anesthesia faculty, a limited number of clinical learning sites and preceptors. Internal Influences contributing to the development and implementation of the TNAP project were: educational Leadership, market forces and increased demand for CRNAs within the tri-state community, utilization of power and influence to create change in traditional education models. The Bureau of Health Professions National Goals is to: Improve access to quality health care through appropriate preparation, composition, and distribution of the health profession workforce, Improve access to a diverse and culturally competent and sensitive health professions workforce. This project will increase the Diversity of CRNA workforce. Healthy People 2010 have set goals to increase African American healthcare work force to 13% and Hispanic workforce to 12% by 2010. Evaluation of achievement of these goals will be measured by the CIPP Model (context, input, process, and product). This model measures Nurse Anesthesia students' cultural competency and sensitivity via the TSET Instrument and their learning styles utilizing the VARK instrument.