By Staff
Elaine Foster, dean of Southwestern Michigan College's School of Nursing and Human Services, presented the SMC Board of Trustees with a detailed presentation regarding the college's nursing and human services programs and the exceptional demand for these graduates in the region at Tuesday night's meeting of the Board of Trustees.
The mission of the SMC School of Nursing and Human Services is to provide the highest quality educational programs in order to meet the needs of our community for health care and human service professionals.
"SMC takes quality very seriously," said Dr. David Mathews. "We have consistently met our goal of providing only the highest-quality educational programs as is evidenced by the consistent 100-percent pass rate of our nursing graduates on the NCLEX (National Council of Licensing Examination) Exam as well as by the high demand of local employers for our graduates. By providing our students with a solid education, we are then able to meet the needs of the community for professional health and human service occupations."
In 2004, SMC took its passion for providing quality education a step further by establishing the School of Nursing and Human Services Center of Excellence.
The Center of Excellence involved the addition of several new programs and the expansion of facilities in order to accommodate more students and additional programs.
Mrs. Foster presented facts concerning the current health care shortage from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services including:
The shortage was predicted to start in 2007 but was evident in 2000.
Nursing numbers were estimated at 1.89 million in 2000, but the projected need was around 2 million (a shortage of 110,000 or 6 percent).
By 2010, the shortage is expected to be about 12 percent; by 2015, a 20-percent shortage.
If current trends do not change, by the year 2020, the shortage will be about 29 percent.
These statistics indicate a 40-percent increase in demand over 20 years compared to only a 6-percent growth in supply of qualified nurses.
Nearly 1 million new nurses will be needed within the next 10 years.
 Number of nursing school graduates went from 96,610 to 71,475 between 1995 and 2000.
Pass rates for the NCLEX declined during this time from 91 percent to 84 percent.
Current national pass rates range from 84 percent to 86 percent.
SMC School of Nursing has had a 100-percent pass rate on the NCLEX exam eight of the past nine quarters.
A recent study from the Michigan Department of Career Development reported the fastest growing health care occupations through 2008 in southwest Michigan. Many of the programs mentioned are already offered by SMC. However, there were several that are not currently being offered.