SEATTLE, Wash — The Regence Foundation announces a $135,500 grant to the Western Washington Area Health Education Center to support a program that enables rural residents to train for a nursing career while they continue living and working in their own communities. The program is also intended to help ease Washington’s nursing shortage, which is especially severe in rural areas.

“Nurses are at the heart of our health care system,” said Michael Alexander, Regence Foundation board chair. “They are often a patient’s best advocate, and they bring skill, compassion and understanding to health care. It’s essential we support programs like the Rural Nurse Education Outreach that are creating innovative solutions to difficult health care problems.”

The program is geared toward people already working in the health care field. Students are sponsored by their employer, often in exchange for agreeing to stay with that employer for several years after earning their degree. The students’ coursework is a mix of online education and clinical training in local health care facilities with local nurses as instructors.

According to the Health Care Personnel Shortage Task Force, Washington will need approximately 500 additional new registered nurse graduates per year to end the nursing shortage. Rural health care employers already participating in the program include Klickitat Valley Health in Goldendale, Ferry County Memorial Hospital in Republic, Jefferson Healthcare in Port Townsend and Morton General Hospital in Morton.

“The Regence Foundation is committed to supporting organizations that are tackling the root causes of our broken health care system,” said Monique Barton, Regence Foundation executive director. “We applaud the Western Washington Area Health Education Center for thinking creatively about how to educate new nurses and improve the health care system.”