Press Releases

Today, U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright (PA-08) announced $972,980 in federal funding is heading back to the region from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine to develop its nursing education program.

“These federal dollars will go a long way in addressing the national and regional nursing shortage,” said Rep. Cartwright. “This significant investment in nursing education and workforce development will increase the number of nurses, elevate the quality of their education and ultimately improve the care they provide to patients."

“We are grateful to Congressman Cartwright and The Health Resources and Services Administration for recognizing the need for new and innovative approaches to nurse education,” said Rebecca Stoudt, DNP, PhD, CRNA, Geisinger College of Health Sciences associate dean, nursing student education.  “The grant will be used to develop self-directed learning modules that can be used by nurses interested in taking on an additional educational role as a preceptor or clinical instructor. Our goal is to make it easy for nurses to adopt teaching roles in addition to their roles at the bedside and to incentivize them to do so. More nurses trained as clinical educators will provide additional educational experiences for nursing students to strengthen and bolster the nursing workforce.  This program will be beneficial for students and patients, and good for the improved health and wellbeing of our communities.”

The Department of Health and Human Services is a federal department concerned with promoting the health and wellbeing of U.S. citizens. The Department is also responsible for promoting research in social services, medicine and public health.