Western Washington Area Health Education Center

Home

About Us

Health Professionals/
Student Placement

Volunteer/Retired
Providers Program

Continuing Education

K-12 Learning Resources

Statewide Office
of Rural Health

Rural Outreach
Nursing Education

Health Workforce Development

Community Health
Assessment, Planning
& Development

Primary Care
Provider Recruitment

Staff

Links

Shop

Site Map

WWAHEC
2033 Sixth Avenue, Ste. 310
Seattle, WA  98121
Ph: 206.441.7137
Fax: 206.441.7158

Connecting Students to Careers, Professionals to Communities, and Communities to Better Health

News & Events

Western Washington AHEC Receives Regence Foundation Grant for RONE

The Regence Foundation awarded a $135,500 grant to the Western Washington Area Health Education Center to support RONE (Rural Outreach Nursing Education), a program that enables rural residents to train for a nursing career while they continue living and working in their own communities. The program is also intended to help ease Washington’s nursing shortage, which is especially severe in rural areas.

“Nurses are at the heart of our health care system,” said Michael Alexander, Regence Foundation board chair. “They are often a patient’s best advocate, and they bring skill, compassion and understanding to health care. It’s essential we support programs like the Rural Nurse Education Outreach that are creating innovative solutions to difficult health care problems.”

The program is geared toward people already working in the health care field, and students who are sponsored by their employer often in exchange for agreeing to stay with that employer for a certain amount of time after earning their degree. The students’ coursework is a mix of online education and clinical training in local health care facilities with local nurses as instructors.

According to the Health Care Personnel Shortage Task Force, Washington will need approximately 500 additional new registered nurse graduates per year to end the nursing shortage. Rural health care employers already participating in the program include Klickitat Valley Health in Goldendale, Ferry County Memorial Hospital in Republic, Jefferson Healthcare in Port Townsend and Morton General Hospital in Morton.

“The Regence Foundation is committed to supporting organizations that are tackling the root causes of our broken health care system,” said Monique Barton, Regence Foundation executive director. “We applaud the Western Washington Area Health Education Center for thinking creatively about how to educate new nurses and improve the health care system.”

WWAHEC 2007-2008 Highlights available for downloading

Western Washington Area Health Education Center recently published its 2007-2008 Highlights report. An electronic version of the report is available for downloading and a limited number of printed copies are available by request.  Please contact us if you are interested in receiving a hard copy of the report.

or

Submit feedback about this website

Page updated 03/10/2009