The University of Tennessee, College of Nursing has been awarded a $3.7M grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to offer quality mental health care services to rural communities with underrepresented and minority residents, seeing each insured and uninsured patients, through nurse practitioner-led mobile health units and telehealth equipment.
The project titled Mobile Health Training: Underrepresented Providers & Underrepresented Populations (UP & UP) will help to coach underrepresented and minority students within the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP) BSN to DNP and certificate programs by offering a full scholarship to 18 students.
The chosen students and their PMHNP preceptor provide telehealth services to Hamblen, McMinn, Morgan, Monroe, Sevier counties through mobile health care clinics in the future per week.
This project will help to strengthen diversity throughout the nursing field. It not only provides funding to extend the variety of diverse and underrepresented students within the PMHNP program, but it should also help address the mental health needs of rural communities of Tennessee.”
Mary Johnson, project director, PMHNP concentration coordinator and clinical assistant professor
One other component of the project is to integrate social determinants of health, health equity and access to care, health literacy, culturally sensitive care, leadership, and communication concepts into the present PMHNP educational curriculum to enhance patient health outcomes.
HRSA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the first federal agency for improving health care to people who find themselves geographically isolated, economically, or medically vulnerable.
“The prevalence of mental health disorders is highest amongst those living in Appalachian regions of Tennessee,” said Allyson Neal, assistant dean of graduate programs. “This fact coupled with limited services for rural residents creates health disparities. This grant will impact the lives of rural Tennessee residents by bringing them care and by training PMHNP’s to beat the challenges unique to this population.”
The project began on July 1 and can run over the course of 4 years.
Source:
University of Tennessee at Knoxville