ALBANY - Governor David Paterson Tuesday announced that nearly $5 million from the 2008-09 state budget will be invested in additional nursing education at public and private universities and colleges to help curb New York State’s nursing shortage. The funding will enable New York to further develop its nursing workforce.

The budget, which the Legislature is expected to vote on, significantly increases funds available to nursing schools seeking to increase their student capacity by providing nearly $2 million in funding to nursing schools within the State University of New York, nearly $2 million for City University of New York schools, and nearly $1 million for nursing education at private colleges and universities.

Nationally, as well as in New York, there has been a chronic shortage of nurses for the last ten years. Health care analysts expect the need for nurses to grow in every area of health care in the future. The nursing shortage is affected by fewer slots available for nurse education programs at the college level.

The budget contains other items of particular interest to nurses, including:

• A new Nurse Family Partnership Program will provide home visits and case management to first-time mothers and their children up to age two. The program will be launched in Monroe County and New York City.
• For the first time, Medicaid will cover the services of certified diabetes and asthma educators, many of whom are nurses. Providing patients with education will help them manage their chronic diseases more effectively, keeping them healthier and preventing hospitalizations or loss of work time.
• The shift of Medicaid funding to outpatient care, coupled with a rate-setting methodology that values the cost of a visit on the intensity of services provided. This will reimburse doctors and nurses more fairly for work with new patients or those with complex medical issues.

New York has invested nearly $300 million in health care workforce retraining – with nearly half that funding supporting nurse training. Graduation rates for new nurses were 12 percent higher in 2006 than the year before, and that trend appears to be continuing. While there has been gradual improvement, the number of registered nurses practicing in New York State only rose by 6.8 percent between 2002 and 2006 and more nurses are needed in nearly every health care setting.