UCF announces $10 million pledge from AdventHealth, Orlando Health for new nursing college facility
The University of Central Florida announced on Thursday that AdventHealth and Orlando Health are contributing a combined $10 million to help construct a new $70 million building for UCF’s College of Nursing in Lake Nona in order to address Florida’s nursing shortage.
The $10 million contribution is the latest development in UCF’s longstanding partnerships with the two healthcare organizations, which are some of the first members of UCF’s new Pegasus Partners program.
The program allows member organizations to engage with UCF in ways that include talent development and recruitment, shared research projects, joint ventures and collaborations and strategic philanthropy.
The new building will allow the College of Nursing to accept more qualified applicants than it is currently able to. Mary Lou Sole, the Dean of the College of Nursing, says 45% of qualified applicants were turned away for the Fall 2022 semester.
Sole says the rate of applicants has not gone down despite the nursing shortage. She says the shortage is in part due to Florida’s unique demographic situation.
“Florida is the fastest growing state in the U.S.,” Sole said. “We have an aging population that needs more care. And I think in particular, this area is just growing. And when we think of the number of health care facilities that are opening, it’s that Central Florida is going to be impacted more than perhaps other areas of Florida because of the growth of people that still want to come to Central Florida.”
She cited a study commissioned by the Florida Hospital Association that projected a shortfall of 37,400 registered nurses by 2035. To close the gap, the study found, the state needs to add 2,300 registered nurses and 1,700 licensed practical nurses per year.
“So we’re talking 12 years from now,” Sole said. “And so this need is there.”
The $70 million, 90,000-square-foot building is currently planned to be operational by Fall 2025. The UCF Board of Trustees are expected to vote to approve the next phase of construction next Thursday. Sole hopes to break ground on the building by the end of the year.
The building is expected to allow the College of Nursing to increase enrollment by at least 50%. UCF already adds about 260 nurses to the workforce each year, according to the college. The building is supposed to include augmented and virtual reality in the curriculum.
“The key part of it is… really about flexibility. How can one room become a classroom one hour; the next hour, it’s a laboratory; the next hour, maybe it’s an AR, an augmented reality, experiential learning thing. So we’ve really designed it so that we could grow.”
Funding for the building also includes $43.7 million from the state legislature and $26.2 million raised through philanthropy, including from Dr. Phillips Charities and the New York-based Helene Fuld Health Trust.
Even without the building, the college has been admitting more applicants than usual.
“We were able to take a cohort of 100 this past year,” Sole said. “Thanks to the pipeline dollars, again, that the legislature and the governor provided to us last year this year, that allowed us to hire additional faculty and staff to support growth of programs. And that has been again, instrumental. It’s not just the building. It’s the team, it’s the space, it’s the programs and it’s the operations.”
Shezel O’Neal, AdventHealth’s executive director of nursing development, said partnering with academia is one of the organization’s most important strategies. AdventHealth places nursing students on nursing units and gives them a streamlined and consistent experience throughout a whole semester, she said.
“They get to build relationships with their preceptors and with the employees and the staff and understand that specialty area more in depth, and it allows them to have more training experiences and competency building,” O’Neal said. “And so we know that that improves their satisfaction and their growth opportunities. So that’s something that we’re working on.”
“It’s really a longitudinal experience for education for nurses,” O’Neal said. “Rather than coming to our campuses for a single episode of training with one preceptor, they come for several weeks in a row with the same preceptor from our campus. It creates a relationship, it creates a level of comfort where they can actually learn the most about their transition into nursing.”
Karen Frenier, the chief nurse executive at Orlando Health, said the organization is adjusting its own strategies as well.
“Like many healthcare systems across the state and the nation, Orlando Health constantly evaluates and adjusts strategies in order to deliver exceptional patient care,” Frenier said in a statement distributed by UCF. “We are excited about our long-term partnership with UCF as we continue to strategically plan nursing workforce opportunities for the future.”
The Pegasus Partners program will also create a scholars program named in honor of AdventHealth and Orlando Health. Each of those programs will provide tuition assistance to 10 senior bachelor of science in nursing students annually and establish a paid summer internship program for an additional 10 to 15 students annually.
