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House calls: FAU gets big grant to create nurse home-visit program

Steve Dorfman
Palm Beach Post
Florida Atlantic University has received a $3.9 million grant to run a nurse-led home visit program.

Those of us who are of a certain age can remember a bygone era in which, when necessary, doctors made house calls. 

Granted, it didn’t happen very often — but it was certainly not unheard of. 

Fast-forward several decades and the concept of having health-care workers travel to their patients has been reimagined — but now with nurses, nurse practitioners and nursing students. 

And it’s happening locally.  

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FAU program to reach the underserved

Florida Atlantic University

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing have received a four-year, $3.9 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to fund a nurse-led program designed to create healthier populations in rural and medically underserved regions. 

The program will provide a variety of services, ranging from preventive to curative. 

The HRSA calls these cohorts of participating nurses “mobile health units” — but you shouldn’t interpret the term to mean there’s a physical bus or van traveling from one spot to another.   

Rather, it simply means nurses will be strategically dispatched to go where they’re needed most. The program comes in the wake of the Academy of Science calling for new strategies for health-care delivery and services, and for innovative approaches for education. 

The FAU project’s name is a mouthful: “Caring-based Community & Academic Relationships for Excellence (CARE): Nurse-led Mobile Health Unit.”

The leaders of CARE say the program is designed to increase health-care access to rural and vulnerable populations. They’ll do this in a variety of ways:

  • Via technology-assisted, culturally aligned, evidence-based health promotion;
  • By identifying ways to promote disease prevention;
  • And by providing primary and mental health care services to folks who normally don’t have easy access to such services. 

The project will specifically target the underserved populations of Belle Glade and West Palm Beach. Among people CARE is prioritizing: families with children, veterans, homeless persons, women and children sheltering from domestic violence, and young people who have aged out of the foster care system. 

These are the people who are at highest risk for health disparities and low literacy.

FAU’s College of Nursing will work jointly with its nurse-led FAU/Northwest Community Health Alliance Community Health Center to implement this new approach.  

The FAU/NCHA Community Health Center is designated by HRSA as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) Look-Alike. The purpose of FQHCs is to serve communities that may have financial disadvantages, language barriers, geographic barriers, or other specific needs.

These factors have been identified as some of the leading causes for poor healthcare outcomes for minorities and people of color.

Training a new generation of nurses

FAU nursing faculty will direct undergraduate and graduate nursing students. The institution will partner with other local entities, including West Palm Beach Veteran Affairs Medical Center/Fresh Truck, The Salvation Army Palm Beach County, Vita Nova, YWCA Palm Beach County, and the Glades Area Ministerial Association.   

The grant project director is Beth King, an associate professor and coordinator of the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program at FAU’s College of Nursing. Karethy Edwards, professor and associate dean for academic programs and executive director of the FAU/NCHA Community Health Center, will serve as the director of clinical services of the program's participants. Karen Chambers, an assistant professor and family nurse practitioner, will serve as project coordinator.

Karen Chambers, an assistant professor and family nurse practitioner at FAU’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, is serving as the project coordinator for the CARE project.

“With HRSA prioritizing mental health and reproductive health, family planning and teen pregnancy initiatives, our program has the ultimate aim of creating healthier populations in rural and medically underserved populations,” said King. “We are excited to work to fulfill HRSA’s goal to increase and strengthen a diverse and culturally competent nursing workforce to address healthcare disparities in these communities.” 

The project team will recruit, financially support and educate undergraduate nursing students and doctor of nursing, advance-practice students from varied backgrounds. Building this diverse collection of trained healthcare professionals is considered vital as the nation's population — as well as South Florida's — grows ever more diverse. 

FAU plans to work with its new and current community partners for nursing student academic service-learning projects, longitudinal clinical experiences and professional mentorships.

House calls aimed at improving outcomes

There also will be future research projects aimed at further developing best-practices methods to enhance the healthcare provided in these untraditional venues.  

For students participating in CARE, the experience will be invaluable.

Dr. Armiel Suriaga (white lab coat), an assistant professor in FAU’s College of Nursing, at the “Hallowscreen” family-friendly health event held in October and which provided a variety of health screenings and free giveaways to attendees.

Undergraduate and graduate students in the program will provide primary care and mental health services while being overseen by board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners, family nurse practitioners and/or adult gerontology nurse practitioners. The possibility also exists that they'll consult with collaborating physicians via telehealth.  

Undergraduate nursing students will be directed by a registered nurse coordinator, and they’ll be taught to implement evidence-based health-care practices and deliver culturally aligned care. 

(Myriad studies show that minorities and people of color often receive subpar health care — especially when being treated by people from a different cultural background.) 

“Rather than expecting our medically underserved patients to come to our FAU/NCHA Community Health Center for their health-care needs, this HRSA grant enables us to go to them,” said Safiya George, dean of FAU’s College of Nursing. “By bringing this program to our region’s rural and underserved communities, our CARE nursing students will have the opportunity to experience firsthand the impact of the social determinants of health.”

To learn more about FAU's traveling-nurse program, contact the Florida Atlantic University Northwest Community Health Alliance Community Health Center at 561-803-8880 or visit the FAU College of Nursing at nursing.fau.edu.