Bellin College will begin a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program, to address workforce shortage.
BELLEVUE - In Wisconsin, it can take anywhere from 12 to 16 months for someone to see a psychiatrist. Were someone with a broken arm to wait that long for treatment, the bone would heal at an odd angle, the arm likely permanently disfigured.
The consequences of not seeing a mental health professional can similarly impact people in need, although it doesn't look apparent the way a twisted arm might.
But what it might look like is a pounding heart and shortness of breath at unpredictable intervals, unstable relationships and impulsive behaviors, substance use disorder, self-harm, or a sense of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts, according to National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Long delays in seeking treatment can be dangerous and sometimes life-threatening for someone in crisis. It's part of why Dr. Mary Rolloff and Dr. Lori Kulju are at the helm of a new program at Bellin College aimed at improving the mental health workforce. Starting in fall 2024, Bellin College will expand its educational offerings to include a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program.
These are advanced practice nurses, similar to a nurse practitioner you might see at a primary care physician's office, except they're specifically credentialed in psychiatric mental health. Incorporating nurses with that background is critical, Rolloff said, because family nurse practitioners at Bellin College are constantly asked about mental health services.
Bellin College is unique from many health care institutions in that it's located in the Green Bay suburb of Bellevue, where the locale tends to serve more rural patients. That distinction is critical, said Rolloff, who serves as the dean of nursing at Bellin College, because mental health needs are even more "desperate" for rural residents.
"Our (nurse practitioner) graduates were identifying that they're seeing individuals who are struggling with mental health issues routinely in our practice," Rolloff said. "We know the issues are out there, but they're being under-identified and definitely undertreated."
Millions of children and adults live without necessary mental health treatment
According to a 2020 report from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), one in five adults had a mental illness in the last year and one in 20 adults had a serious mental illness in the last year. Young adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest rates of mental illness in both categories.
At the same time, at least 25% of adults with mental illness aren't receiving treatment, according to NAMI. That translates to potentially 13 million people over 18 in the United States.
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And the numbers of untreated mental health conditions are even grimmer for children and adolescents, where a little less than half of children with anxiety or behavior disorders — more than 5 million — receive treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over the last year, Wisconsin Department of Health Services has also flagged the stark suicide rates of men 25 and older living in rural areas as part of its Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Program from the CDC.
That comes as suicide deaths have reached historical heights, with more than 900 Wisconsinites dying by suicide in 2022. In more than 500 of these deaths, individuals took their life with a gun.
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The role of a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner can help bottlenecking waitlists for care
As the number of people in need of mental health services increases, so too does the number of undergraduate students interested in being mental health practitioners at health care institutions like Bellin College, Rolloff said.
"We've seen much more interest in our undergraduate students looking at mental health specialties than we did, say, 10 years ago," Rolloff said. "I have more graduates for our (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) program looking at making a difference with mental health. That was not the case years ago."
Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners would be able to engage with patients in the following ways:
Provide individual, group, couples and/or family psychotherapy.
Diagnose, treat and manage chronic or acute mental health or psychiatric illness.
Order, perform and interpret lab tests and other diagnostic studies.
Prescribe medication for acute and chronic mental illnesses.
Conduct comprehensive mental health assessments.
Provide clinical supervision.
Offer integrative therapy interventions.
Provide preventive care, including screenings for mental health conditions.
Make referrals for health problems outside the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner scope of practice.
Perform procedures.
Develop policies for programs and systems.
One major benefit of Bellin College's psychiatric nurse mental health practitioner program is that it will be offered online, and the college will work with the students to place them at clinics geographically located where they live, Rolloff said.
Incentivizing nurse practitioners to work in more rural parts of the state "has always been a huge barrier," said Kulju, the graduate nursing program director at Bellin College.
Meeting graduate students where they are is a trend picking up traction. In October, the School Mental Health Collaborative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched its nationwide program to inject more school-based mental health providers into districts based on the same inkling: Educating people — and establishing clinical experience — where they live encourages them to stay put.
"That's always been such a limiting factor — getting providers into those rural areas means being able to offer the education to get them there," Kulju said.
Over the next few years, Kulju and Rolloff expect more psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners to fill needed positions in acute in-patient facilities, residential substance abuse facilities, outpatient clinical settings, nursing homes, prisons, jails, school systems, and employer clinics for workforce issues, to name just a few possibilities.
"The opportunities are endless for where they can work," Kulju said.
The program's success depends on its ability to work with clinical sites. Provider shortages can make this a tall order.
The program will begin with a more conservative number of graduate students, Rolloff said, because students will need to get into clinical practices to learn what they need to do.
The process creates something of a catch-22, Rolloff said. The state needs these graduates to become providers, because there's such a severe shortage of providers. But if there aren't providers capable of assuming the role of the teacher, or a qualified supervisor, gaining clinical experience is that much harder to achieve.
Bellin College will likely accept about a dozen students in the first year, Rolloff said, and expand from there.
"We will be very careful in selecting clinical sites at first to ensure that the students get the experiences they need, and then grow the program as we have more providers available," Rolloff said.
The length of the program depends on the type of student coming through Bellin College. Advanced nurse practitioners, for example, can receive training through a two-year postgraduate certificate program to become certified as an advanced nurse practitioner in psychiatric mental health nursing.
For students who have already earned a bachelor's in science of nursing degree, they can pursue a master's in science of nursing and complete the program full-time over two years or part-time over three years.
Interested students can head to Bellin College's admissions page to learn more information about the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program or to apply.
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Natalie Eilbert covers mental health issues for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. She welcomes story tips and feedback. You can reach her at neilbert@gannett.com or view her Twitter profile at @natalie_eilbert. If you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text "Hopeline" to the National Crisis Text Line at 741-741.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Bellin College launches psychiatric nurse practitioner program
