Billings-Berg: More nursing seats are coming to Vermont State University
VBM
VTSU Dean of Nursing and Health Sciences Ready for some good news about nursing in Vermont? I bet you are. I know—reports haven’t always focused on the good news. As recently as last year, news reports focused on nurses retiring, how we don’t have personnel or facilities to educate new nurses, the high cost of education and how all these factors plus burnout resulted in a shortage of nurses in Vermont and across the country. This leads to the use of expensive travelling nurses to provide essential staffing in our hospitals and community care settings. In short, the news focused on the problems with developing and maintaining our nursing workforce in Vermont.
Here's the new picture—Vermonters listened to those reports and took action. Our lawmakers, governor, employers and education leaders—at the state and national levels—went to work on breaking down barriers to educating more nurses and invested in new initiatives and creative solutions to make it easier.