Project Overview: Denmark Technical College’s goal is to respond to growing healthcare providers’ workforce needs by developing a diploma program in Licensed Practical Nursing.

The program will provide classroom instruction and lab experience for traditional and non-traditional students in Licensed Practical Nursing. With the shortage of nurses in our service area, there is a need to pursue this program in order to serve the constituents in Denmark’s service area of Bamberg, Barnwell and Allendale counties. Once the students graduate from this particular program, they will be able to pursue employment in hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’ offices, etc.

Information on Local Needs: Denmark Technical College has three county hospitals in its service area of Bamberg, Barnwell, and Allendale Counties. In addition, there are five nursing homes and a number of doctors’ offices. All of them employ nurses. Bamberg County is in the process of building a new, larger county hospital only eight miles from the Denmark Technical College campus. This will increase the demand for nurses in this area.

Denmark Technical College serves a rural area, and it is difficult to recruit nurses that have to travel long distances from Augusta or Columbia to work. By building a program at Denmark Tech, the college will be responding to a critical need in its communities, and will be providing training opportunities for future nurses who are already residents of the service area and who have a much greater likelihood of remaining in the area. The program will be a great asset to the health care providers and to the residents in this area.
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Florence-Darlington Technical College (Darlington, Florence, Marion)
Program Areas: Nursing, Electroneurodiagnostic Technology
Project Overview: Florence-Darlington Technical College has identified three project goals that will assist the college in responding to healthcare provider needs by:
• Increasing the capacity of the nursing program;
• Developing and implementing a certificate program in Electroneurodiagnostic Technology (ENDT); and
• Expanding the ENDT certificate program to the associate degree level.

These funds will enable the nursing program to increase the size of the entering class from 64 to 80 students in both the fall and spring semesters. In order to accomplish this, FDTC requires additional funding in order to hire and retain a sufficient number of masters’ prepared nursing faculty that can support over 350 nursing students. FDTC will use the funding to “grow” its own nursing faculty by hiring faculty at the BSN level, and then paying for coursework and training required to obtain their MSN degree.

Currently, there is no program in the state for electroneurodiagnostic technology. In response to local and regional need, the college will develop and implement a certificate program in electroneurodiagnostic technology (ENDT), which will provide training and knowledge in the areas of electroencephalography, polysomnography and evoked potential and nerve conduction testing, including intraoperative monitoring.

In order to build the capacity for an associate degree in ENDT, FDTC will require the conversion of space at the Health Sciences Campus into a training/sleep lab. Funds will also support the purchase of equipment, such as medical simulation manikins, computers, physiological monitors, and EEG machines.

Information on Local Needs: McLeod Regional Medical Center and Carolinas Hospital System have significantly increased their bed capacity, thus increasing their need for more RNs. FDTC faces a challenge in producing more nurses due to the difficulty of filling full-time faculty vacancies created by retirements, military service obligations, competition from another local educational institution, and the health care industry. This situation has caused FDTC to become increasingly dependent on adjunct faculty, when the real need is for full-time masters prepared nursing faculty.

Twenty-five area neurologists, neurosurgeons, and hospitals, including McLeod Regional Medical Center, Carolinas Hospital System, Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center, Conway Medical Center, and MUSC, have expressed support for the start of an ENDT program. A program of this type will fill a local and regional need for individuals with ENDT-related skills. Hospitals are currently contracting for these services or trying to train existing personnel on the job. These individuals have very limited, specialized skills and do not have the educational background that is required for certification.
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Greenville Technical College (Greenville)
Program Areas: Allied Health, Nursing
Project Overview: This GTC project, in partnership with healthcare stakeholders in the Upstate, will respond to workforce demands in the Greenville area by addressing goals that will:
• Alleviate the shortage of qualified faculty; and
• Provide much needed instructional equipment.
Funding will allow GTC to increase the number of students enrolled in the allied health and nursing programs by providing resources the college will use to address faculty shortages and purchase instructional equipment that will provide students with quality education and training. Currently, all of the health and nursing programs are at maximum capacity, and the college cannot build capacity without additional resources for faculty, equipment and clinical sites.

Information on Local Needs: One of the most acute local needs is recruiting and retaining qualified faculty for all of the health science and nursing programs, since marketplace salaries are significantly higher. In additional, accreditation agencies are requiring higher degrees than in the past. This presents challenges in terms of the college being able to provide tuition assistance to currently employed faculty. Nursing is particularly vulnerable with the aging of the faculty and the many impending retirements.

Further challenges are presented due to the lack of instructional equipment funds in the local and state budget. Many of the health and nursing programs need very expensive technology equipment to provide quality education. Some equipment funds will be used to purchase patient simulators. Patient simulators provide hands-on training for students and provide alternatives to the lack of clinical space in the Upstate.
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Horry-Georgetown Technical College (Georgetown, Horry)
Program Area: Nursing
Project Overview: Horry-Georgetown Technical College’s project addresses its greatest need of alleviating the local nursing shortage by:
• Increasing the pool of graduates of the associate degree nursing program;
• Hiring additional faculty to support additional students; and
• Equipping classrooms to support an expanded nursing program.

The nursing shortage exists most notably in the area of hospitals, but the need for nurses continues to rise for all other health care providers, such as nursing homes, assisted living centers, physicians’ offices, and home health care. This demand is exacerbated by an aging population affecting not only the need for nursing care, but also the rate of nurses retiring from the profession. Further, teaching institutions are experiencing difficulty in employing nurse educators for the same factors of market competitiveness and the retiring pool of nurses.

Information on Local Needs: Horry and Georgetown counties are served by four hospital systems. The two largest hospitals each project a need for at least 110 new registered nurses for the next three to five years, totaling at least 220 new positions by 2009. In addition to the new positions, turnover positions within the registered nursing pool in these two hospitals are projected to exceed 150 nurses. The two other area hospitals project a combined need for 100 new and returning positions over the next two to five years. Total projected need for registered nurses for Horry and Georgetown counties could conservatively be 600 positions two to five years out.

The college has a three-year waiting list of several hundred students for the associate degree nursing program. For many of these students, and for the hospitals, this long wait period deprives the community of local residents having high quality employment opportunities and of supporting those with health care needs. To alleviate a fraction of the nursing shortage, Horry-Georgetown Technical College could expand the nursing program, based upon adequate funding, by admitting more students. Admitting more students would require hiring additional nursing faculty, equipping classrooms and purchasing supplies.
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Midlands Technical College (Fairfield, Lexington, Richland)
Program Areas: Medical Assisting, Imaging Sciences, Nursing
Project Overview: Midlands Technical College proposes to respond to the growing need for healthcare workers in three areas by:
• Increasing the number of nursing graduates by focusing on retention initiatives to include academic assistance for increasing students’ skills, hiring additional faculty, and upgrading facilities;
• Increasing the number of medical assisting graduates by building increased capacity for the medical assisting program with additional laboratory and classroom space, and faculty; and
• Increasing imaging sciences’ capacity to serve more students through enhanced facilities and additional faculty.

To increase the output of registered nurses, the funds will be spent on retention initiatives. An additional faculty position with job duties that include creating and teaching a course on success in nursing, monitoring WorkKeys evaluations and KeyTrain remedial work as well as tutoring responsibilities would enable the faculty to require that a student, after failing and or withdrawing at mid-term because of a poor grade, complete remedial work before returning to nursing. An additional full-time position for a BSN prepared registered nurse to assist with remedial work in the skills lab and to help with dosage calculation will strengthen the clinical skills portion.

Medical assisting requires additional dedicated laboratory and classroom space. This includes classroom space, laboratory space to accommodate clinical skills training, and a dedicated computer laboratory for software and administrative function training. Faculty needs include two Certified Medical Assistants, one to teach clinical competencies and the other to teach administrative components.

Imaging sciences requires the addition of dedicated laboratory space (multi-functional imaging lab) as well as classroom space (2 needed). Two additional faculty positions are required.

Information on Local Needs: The Central Midlands' largest economic/career cluster is health services, with more than 33,000 employees currently, and an average annual rate of increase at eight percent. The area's employment concentration in health services is larger than that of the nation.

While the shortage and demand for registered nurses locally receives widespread attention, critical shortages lie in the auxiliary health fields as well. In medical assisting alone, it is anticipated by the U.S. Department of Labor that 323 new jobs will be demanded by the industry between now and 2008, a 38% increase from current levels. Across the imaging sciences, inclusive of radiologic, nuclear and sonography, a 23% increase is anticipated, and for registered nurses a 23% increase is expected in the MTC service area.
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Northeastern Technical College (Chesterfield, Dillon, Marlboro)
Program Area: Nursing
Project Overview: Northeastern Technical College plans to address the acute shortage of nursing personnel in their rural community by implementing the associate in health science, major in nursing, in the fall of 2007, as part of a nursing career ladder in addition to the current practical nursing program of the college.

Difficulty in recruiting and retaining nursing personnel is a factor which threatens the quality of health care in Chesterfield, Marlboro and Dillon counties of South Carolina, an isolated, rural area whose rates of poverty, unemployment and chronic health issues are among the highest in the state.

The associate degree program to be developed will permit local residents to become registered nurses without traveling or relocating to a more urban area to complete nursing education. Because of typical long-standing family connections in their communities, these individuals are much more likely to remain in the area to practice their profession, providing a consistent pool of nurses for employment in hospitals, doctors’ offices and other health agencies.

Information on Local Needs: Northeastern Technical College is the sole postsecondary institution in the rural three-county service area where the demand for skilled nurses in all phases of healthcare continues to exceed the supply. Healthcare providers have requested the assistance of the college to meet their needs for hiring registered nurses to properly staff their facilities. Local graduates can help to reduce the need for agencies to conduct extremely costly recruitment campaigns and to contract with both national and international nursing services. The local need is for registered nurses to satisfy current position openings, to fill new positions due to projected expansions of services, and to replace positions made available by retirements.

Northeastern Technical College has made significant efforts to meet local employer needs. NETC and Florence-Darlington Technical College, at NETC expense, partnered this year to pilot the PN to RN Transition program, incorporating videoconference technology for instructional delivery on the NETC campus. Additionally, NETC and McLeod-Dillon have successfully proposed a planning grant to the Duke Endowment. The purpose of the planning grant is to conduct a detailed needs assessment and determine feasibility for development of the associate degree program.
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Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College (Calhoun, Orangeburg)
Program Areas: Health Sciences, Nursing
Project Overview: Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College will respond to the critical need for additional healthcare workers in their local area by:
• Focusing on implementing expanded retention strategies resulting in more graduates; and
• Developing new programs in EMT, mammography, MRI, and CT.

Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College maintains a strong commitment to excellence for its health science and nursing programs. With a committed and dedicated faculty, the college has been able to achieve dramatic student results, both in job placement and success on state licensure examinations. Over the past few years, opportunities for graduates to be gainfully employed continue to grow exponentially. In addition, the associate degree nursing, practical nursing, and medical lab technology programs have had 100% success on licensure examinations. With these kinds of successes, enrollment demands have greatly increased, as almost 70% of new applicants to the college are interested in pursuing careers in the health science and nursing fields. Unfortunately, limitations on faculty and space severely inhibit the ability of the college to expand the number of available slots.

While there is room to increase enrollment in some programs, and attention will be placed on expansion in those areas, the overarching theme of this proposal is to garner more graduates. That equates to focusing on retention through additional faculty, increased training and professional development, curriculum development, new equipment purchases, and providing additional student support services. The college is also committed to the development of new programs to support the growing need for additional health care services: EMT, mammography, MRI, and CT technicians.
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Piedmont Technical College
(Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Newberry, Saluda)
Program Areas: Cardiovascular Technology, Nursing
Project Overview: Piedmont Technical College proposes two initiatives to respond to local healthcare provider needs:
• Implementing two new programs – cardiovascular technology and RN bridge program; and
• Obtaining permanent support for its existing associate degree nursing program.

Each of these initiatives is outlined below.
Cardiovascular Technology - One of the fastest growing treatment areas is that involving the vascular system. Vascular technologists non-invasively acquire and record information related to blood vessel anatomy and physiology. Piedmont would be the only technical college in South Carolina to offer such a program. The college’s location is ideal to provide clinical opportunities in several counties. Graduates in vascular technology generally earn between $40,000 and $60,000 annually.

RN Bridge Program – A nursing “bridge” program will be added to the current LPN program at the Laurens County Center. The bridge program will allow those graduates completing the LPN curriculum to gain an ADN degree by attending an additional semester. An ADN degree allows students to sit for the NCLEX and, if successful, obtain an RN license. This bridge program is especially important in alleviating nursing shortages for a rural area, and will allow Laurens County to “grow their own” in the nursing profession. Such a program is strongly supported by both the Laurens and Newberry hospitals.

Sustain Existing ADN Programs - Last year, the General Assembly appropriated $250,000 from the DOR Increased Enforcement Program towards sustaining the nursing programs at Piedmont Technical College. Moving this appropriation to the recurring base is essential if any of the new programs are to come to fruition. Current appropriation levels under the MRR formula do not allow for sustainability in these programs. We must seek a direct appropriation for the programs to continue and to meet the needs of the local population. Piedmont Technical College believes that it can reach a platform of sustainability and an opportunity for growth in the above-referenced areas if this appropriation is made permanent.

Information on Local Needs: The cardiovascular program is in critical need at Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood. The President of the Palmetto Echocardiography Society provided a letter stating the overall need for increased cardiovascular care. Each hospital in Piedmont’s service area is experiencing a sharp decline in available RN staff for their hospitals, as nurses move towards more urban environments instead of rural health care. The effort to reach a continuing sustainable level of support for existing health care programs will assist the college in meeting its local need. Of the 34 Spring 2005 ADN graduates, 31 were employed within the service area of Piedmont Technical College. The remaining three resided in the service area and were employed by hospitals within the state but outside of our service area.
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Spartanburg Community College (Cherokee, Spartanburg, Union)
Program Areas: Nursing, Medical Assisting, Surgical Technology, Respiratory Care, Radiography, Medical Laboratory Technology
Project Overview: Spartanburg Community College proposes to increase student learning and retention in a rapidly changing health care environment by incorporating simulated competency-based learning into six of the allied health curricula programs.

Today’s medical environment requires a technologically advanced healthcare professional that comes with a high level of cognitive, technical, interpersonal, and workforce readiness skills in order to be able to compete in a rapidly emerging global healthcare marketplace. The patient acuity levels, advanced complexity of multi-level care needed, and the rising costs of medical care dictate that today’s healthcare professional be able to respond with versatility and accurate time-sensitive responses to patient care needs.

Incorporating simulated competency-based learning into six of the allied health curriculum programs using Human Patient Simulators (HPS) will enhance the cognitive and performance abilities of program graduates. This will be accomplished by using interactive adult and pediatric human patient simulators within the classroom and lab settings to create varying true-to-life patient care scenarios. Students are able to simulate realistic patient scenarios without risking human error or instructor liability while learning various treatment protocols. Each student’s performance skills will be developed and sharpened until s/he achieves mastery of each competency within a controlled learning environment prior to a live patient experience. This will allow more efficient use of limited faculty time and clinical and fiscal resources.

These human patient simulators can be used in nursing, medical assisting, surgical technology, respiratory care, radiography, and medical laboratory technology programs.

Greater utilization of these human patient simulators within the allied health curricula will result in increasing student retention and graduation rates, which will assist in meeting healthcare shortages and better educational outcomes for tax payer dollars. Simulators will also provide opportunities for additional training and lifelong learning for the current workforce of the healthcare industry. Because of the use of simulators, educators will be able to restructure the allied health curricula to allow multiple entry and exit points for healthcare workers and greater training options. Simulators will also be used in providing emergency preparedness training strategies for community healthcare professionals.

Accrediting organizations and licensing agencies mandate that students meet specific competencies for clinical practice, which include measurable and quantifiable educational outcomes. Recently published peer-reviewed studies of medical simulations are showing validity for their usage in assessing learning and in evaluating clinical performance.

Other Pertinent Information: The college, over the past three years, has implemented a five-semester ADN program with an LPN entry and exit option. In this time, enrollment in the nursing program has quadrupled to address the area’s nursing shortage. As a net result, there is an increased need for more faculty and additional simulators. Competition for clinical rotation sites with other colleges and universities (USC-Upstate, Gardner-Webb, and Isothermal CC) and higher healthcare salaries in the industry impede hiring of credentialed faculty. Less state funding and a need for more nursing faculty mean less discretionary allocations for faculty in the other allied health programs. Therefore, recurring funds are needed to address this existing situation.

SCC’s service area includes two rural counties (Union and Cherokee); its location is also close to competing metropolitan areas (Greenville and Charlotte). Economic development will be enhanced through a well-trained healthcare workforce meeting or exceeding national standards, which will in turn attract a greater number of businesses and industries to the local community.
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Technical College of the Lowcountry (Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, Jasper)
Program Areas: Health Sciences
Project Overview: Technical College of the Lowcountry proposes to expand its capacity to produce an increased number of healthcare graduates by:
• Establishing a simulation lab for health science students;
• Providing health sciences equipment for the TCL New River campus opening in Fall 2006; and
• Hiring additional personnel to handle an increase in the number of students.

The simulation lab would provide learning opportunities at all levels, and will permit more efficient use of instructors' time with students. It will be used to introduce basic skills and help students progress to expected high levels of skill attainment. Students in all health programs would participate in simulation labs as well as have access to tutorial support

During the 2005-2006 academic year, TCL implemented twice-a-year admission for nursing students and increased the number of students admitted into the program from 80 to 112 annually. There was no increase in faculty during this time period. The increase in enrollment in the nursing program was a direct response to local health care providers' needs. This increase in students puts a strain on available off-campus clinical areas and on-campus facilities. The simulation lab and additional staff will provide increased and enhanced learning opportunities for graduates.

In addition, funds provided will allow TCL to put into place counseling and retention strategies that will result in more students entering a health sciences careers and successfully attaining their degrees.

Information on Local Needs: Based on several surveys conducted by the local chambers of commerce and TCL there is a growing need for technical college trained health care professionals in all areas. Most recently a survey to support the new program in phyiscal therapy assistant indicated that many local health care providers anticipated a current and future need for PTAs. The same type of need in other health care areas has been expressed numerous times on other surveys.
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Tri-County Technical College (Anderson, Oconee, Pickens)
Program Area: Nursing
Project Overview: Tri-County Technical College is partnering with Clemson University’s School of Nursing and four area hospitals to create a career ladder approach to ensure a continuous pipeline of RNs to fill entry-level nurse positions, and bachelor, master, and doctoral degree RNs to fill hospital staff and teaching positions.

Tri-County has strong licensed practical (LPN) and associate degree (ADN) nurse education programs. However, the college does not have a transferable credit certified nurse assistant (CNA) nurse education program, an evening LPN lecture option, or a nurse tutor to assist students who need additional academic support. Also, one additional human patient simulator and remodeling are needed to bring the nurse education laboratory experience to industry standards.

Information on Local Needs: Based on the projected number of current RNs who will be eligible to retire, the Tri-County area (Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens Counties) will begin to experience a shortage in the next couple of years. This project will help to avert a critical shortage in the years ahead.
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Trident Technical College (Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester)
Program Area: Nursing
Project Overview: Trident Technical College’s goal is to ensure continued high-quality training of future nurses and to respond to local industry needs by providing the faculty and resources necessary to maintain quality instructional programs.

Since 1985, Trident Technical College (TTC) has offered high quality nursing programs that prepare students to become registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and nursing assistants. Currently enrolling almost 300 nursing students each year, TTC is the largest provider of nursing training in the Lowcontry. Of the 93 new RN graduates in Charleston in May 2004, 74 of them - or 80% - graduated from TTC. The fact that TTC trains such a large number of new RNs entering the nursing field locally makes it critical that the college is equipped with the faculty and resources to ensure that the training these future nurses receive is of the highest possible quality.

TTC has a strong commitment to funding additional nursing faculty positions in order to serve more students and provide more nursing graduates. Greenville Tech's nursing ratio of 1:12; Midlands Tech's of 1:16; Charleston Southern's of 1:10; and MUSC's of 1:10 all surpass TTC's ratio of 1:20. TTC clearly needs additional full-time faculty members to reduce the ratio to a realistic goal of 1:16.

Information on Local Needs: The critical nursing shortage in the Tri-county and the state of South Carolina is well documented. There are nursing vacancies in almost every hospital in the state, and 33% of South Carolina’s RNs are over age 50. In the Charleston area, the demand is expected to worsen unless the state’s nursing programs, including that of TTC, hire additional faculty and obtain needed resources to meet the shortage.
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Williamsburg Technical College (Williamsburg)
Program: Practical Nursing
Project Overview: Williamsburg Technical College will respond to local nursing shortages by implementing a diploma program in practical nursing.

Like other rural areas, Williamsburg County healthcare providers face difficulties in attracting and retaining healthcare workers. To respond to the need for nurses, Williamsburg Technical College is presently in the initial stages of seeking program approval for a diploma program in practical nursing. The program summary and proposal has been submitted to the state Board of Nursing, and a site visit from the state Board of Nursing is scheduled for March 10, 2006.

To get to this stage, the college was awarded a $16,000 planning grant from the Duke Endowment to hire a nursing consultant to guide the college through this process, and preliminary forecasts for program approval appear positive. Additionally, the college hired a nursing facutly member to serve as the nursing department head in January 2006, and her tasks include completing the process initiated by the consultant.

Upon notification of pending approval for the program, the college plans to hire at least one additional nursing faculty member for Fall 2006. Funding, in part, for the program's implementation will come from a three-year Workforce Investment Act grant of $325,000. Additional program funding for this program is being sought from the Duke Endowment, but at this point, additional funding has not been received. Beyond the first three years, funding will have to be absorbed by the college if additional funding sources are not found.

Information on Local Needs: For the program to be successful, the college will need recurring funds to hire nursing faculty, and the additional faculty needed in general education coursework supporting the nursing program. Since this is a new program, the initital need for program start is great. The college requires funding for equipment, the purchase of books and periodicals for the library, and supplies and educational support material not considered equipment.
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York Technical College (Chester, Lancaster, York)
Program Areas: Nursing, Paramedic
Project Overview: York Technical College (YTC) is working with the regional health care community to address two critical shortages in the local workforce: registered nurses and certified paramedics. YTC seeks funding to:
• Increase enrollment in the associate degree nursing program through the establishment of a nontraditional evening/weekend program; and
• Implement a credit paramedic certificate. This program is vital to raising the quality of emergency medical services available to the citizens in York, Chester, and Lancaster counties.

Information on Local Needs: In the effort to ensure quality health care, local hospitals report the following needs for registered nurses: Piedmont Medical Center - 81, Chester Regional Medical Center - 3; and Springs Memorial Hospital - 30. Nursing homes, health departments, schools, and clinics also report a critical need for additional registered nurses. Nursing workforce needs continue to increase as the college’s service area experiences explosive growth. Additional health care facilities including a new psychiatric facility in Rock Hill and a new hospital in Fort Mill are planned.

York County Emergency Preparedness, Lancaster EMS, Chester EMS, and other local rescue squads/fire departments are struggling to raise the quality of emergency care for local citizens and increase the number of paramedics in their workforce. YTC currently offers the basic EMT program through continuing education, but does not offer the advanced training required for paramedics. To address the community’s need for paramedics, the York County Council has authorized a task force to work with YTC faculty and staff to develop a paramedic certificate program with targeted implementation for January 2007.

The college does not currently have the resources to plan and implement these new programs and will not be able to meet critical health care needs in the community without additional funding.
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