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SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION OF GOOD SAMARITAN FOUNDATION OF TEXAS, INC.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
ONGOING NATURE OF MISSION AND PROJECT
DESCRIPTION OF GOOD SAMARITAN FOUNDATION OF TEXAS, INC.
Good Samaritan Foundation was founded in 1951 by Rev. Clyde Verheyden and six prominent Houstonians, including R.E. Smith. Originally founded under the auspices of the United Methodist Church the organization focused on the problem of providing enough nurses for the newly founded Texas Medical Center and The Methodist Hospital, receiving its tax exempt status in June, 1952. A secondary goal was to either establish or bring a nursing school to Houston. The Board of Trustees soon realized the accelerating nursing shortage was a secular problem to be solved in the secular world and incorporated as a Texas non-profit organization in the early 1960s. Good Samaritan presently supports student nurses working on LVN, ADN, BSN, MSN and PhD degrees.For 56 years the Good Samaritan Foundation has worked to promote nursing as a career and profession not only by providing assistance to financially needy student nurses working on their clinical nursing studies but also in looking for new and innovative ways to assist the nursing schools, the hospitals and the community. In these 56 years, it is estimated that Good Samaritan gave more than $14 million of aid to approximately 12,000 nursing students with the majority located in Harris County and surrounding areas. Good Samaritan was successful in enticing an established school of nursing to establish a Houston campus, Texas Women's University, and is currently collaborating with others including the Greater Houston Partnership, various local nursing schools and major non-profit hospitals to combat the current and continuing shortage of nurses.
Good Samaritan has a 21 member Board of Trustees and is well supported by the healthcare industry, particularly the larger hospitals. Trustees only serve two consecutive four-year terms before they retire from the board. Terms are staggered to insure that governance continues while new ideas are continually brought in. Good Samaritan has four fulltime employees.
As conditions and the medical/healthcare environment change, Good Samaritan Foundation has adapted its program:
- In 1983, in addition to its support of the LVN and RN programs, it added support for the MSN programs in gerontology;
- In 1995, support was added for all graduate nursing degrees, particularly focusing on those students who indicated they wanted to become instructors;
- In 2003, in response to state funding decreases for nursing schools resulting in a shortage of instructors, the Foundation stepped in to award a $140,000 instructor grant to the College of Nursing at TWU Houston Campus to allow the College to hire a PhD instructor for two years to accommodate the incoming nursing class ;
- In 2004, in response to a request from the Worksource and Greater Houston Partnership, Good Samaritan agreed to furnish $30,000 to the WINNER Project, administered by the School of Nursing at UTHSC to explore new and innovative ways to train new nurses;
- In 2005, the Foundation donated $30,000 to help Texas A&M establish its new Fast Track Nursing Program which has been successfully started;
- In 2005, the Foundation also established its Excellence in Nursing Award Luncheon to recognize outstanding practicing Harris County nurses, nurse educators, and a community supporter of the nursing profession. These awards are an effort to increase job satisfaction and recognition for working nurses;
- In 2006, the Foundation began to explore ways to reach back into middle and high schools to encourage disadvantaged and minority youth to pursue nursing as a career and as a result, in 2007 the Foundation gave a grant of approximately $4,000 to the CAN-DO project at UTHSC, an organization that focuses on engaging young people regarding a nursing career. We anticipate that this initial step will increase in the future encompassing tutorial and life skills assistance for the target population.
- In 2006, the Foundation began to explore partnership opportunities with retirement homes and assisted living facilities to upgrade their nursing staffs from an average LVN level to an average Registered Nurse level in preparation for the expected large influx of clients as the baby boomer population ages. Baby boomers consist of a more affluent and better educated population and will demand higher quality nursing care. Upgrading the nursing staff to an average of RN now will begin to alleviate the rapidly approaching increased shortage.
The basic problem is that a critical shortage of qualified nurses exists not only in Houston but worldwide, possibly resulting in inadequate care for those who are ill. This shortage is expected to increase. It has periodically emerged over the last 60 years. While Good Samaritan Foundation is not large enough to effectively address the problem globally, it can help alleviate this problem in Harris County and surrounding areas and to a limited extent throughout Texas, and should contribute toward decreasing the future shortage.
Understaffed hospitals can be a cause of death in a percentage of their patients. In a landmark study published in October, 2002 by the University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing, it was demonstrated that in a hospital environment every patient with a ratio of patient to nurse of 4:1 incurred an additional 8% risk of not leaving the hospital alive. Thus, at a hospital with an 8:1 ratio, the eighth patient has a 31% higher risk of not leaving the hospital alive as compared to a patient in a similar setting with a patient-nurse ratio of 4:1. The potential impact of the nursing shortage is devastating. As a result a few states have mandated maximum patient/nurse ratios in hospitals and, such a bill has been introduced in the Texas Legislature, but not passed.
Students are not choosing careers in nursing in adequate numbers to meet the current and future demands. An article published in the Houston Chronicle in February, 2007, indicated that according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, by 2020 more than 800,000 jobs for fulltime registered nurses are expected to go unfilled nationwide. Locally in Harris and Ft. Bend County, more than 21,000 new Registered Nurse positions will open by 2016 causing even more of a discrepancy in the area shortage according to a private study performed for the Coleman College of Health Sciences of the Houston Community College.
But, even if more students were choosing nursing as their career, they might not be able to pursue it. In Texas, according to a Dallas Morning News article printed July, 2005, as many as 5,000 qualified students were excluded from entry to nursing schools due to the shortage of instructors. Nursing schools cannot attract instructors due to the higher salaries paid in a hospital setting. Although this inequality is being addressed, equal salaries have not been achieved. According to the same article, 70% of faculty was 3-12 years from retirement painting a grim future for increasing the numbers of nurse graduates.
The number of nurses recruited from overseas who work in the Houston area might decline in the near future. The shortfall of nurses in this area has been somewhat mitigated by the active recruitment of nurses from overseas, particularly South Africa and Nigeria. But, according to The Global Shortage of Registered Nurses report prepared in 2004 for the International Council of Nurses, there is increasing evidence of nurse supply/demand imbalance in many countries and that the sub-Saharan African countries have a (current) shortfall of more than 600,000 nurses. We have received reports that these countries, along with India and the Philippines, are now complaining to international nursing conferences and organizations about the pirating of their nurses. The inevitable result is that many nurses will stay or return to their native countries, exacerbating problems locally and nationwide.
Thus, the nursing shortage nationwide is real, continuing and increasing in spite of the work which the healthcare industry and politicians are doing to address the problem.
ONGOING NATURE OF MISSION AND PROJECT
Good Samaritan Foundation will continue to support student nurses for the foreseeable future. While the program will adjust to different factors in the healthcare and educational markets, it is expected that the largest percentage of the Foundation's program funding will continue to be spent on financial assistance for student nurses. Our goal is to eventually give approximately 750 student nurses financial assistance during any given year. Our direct expenditure budget for 2007 is $700,700 and we expect to increase it to $850,000 by 2009 if funds are available. The Foundation's efforts allow students to attend school fulltime rather than part time so they can enter the much needed workforce quicker.Details of how funds are disbursed: The support is available to student nurses for the clinical level of their nursing education. We assist students in all accredited nursing programs: LVN, Diploma, ADN, BSN, MSN, and PhD's at the school of their choice in Texas. 80% of our funds are awarded within Harris County and the surrounding 12 counties; 20% awarded in the remainder of Texas. We award scholarships regardless of race, gender, creed or religion. We have no formal academic or financial guidelines and scholarships are granted to students who demonstrate need, aptitude and dedication. Grants are set at $500 per semester for undergraduate and anywhere from $500 to $1,000 for graduate students with the stipulation that funds are used for tuition, books and fees.
Every applicant is personally interviewed in our offices before being awarded a grant. The grants continue, up to the maximum amount awarded, as long as the student furnishes us with a transcript of grades and receipts. We have assisted many students all the way from their associate degree programs through graduate studies. Our program directly affects the ability of these individuals to receive a higher education. Not only will these individuals now be prepared to enter the workforce as trained, healthcare professionals but they will also benefit themselves and society as they move into a higher socio-economic group. Many of our students are the first in their families to achieve a higher education. We find that many with this type of background will enter a LVN program (a 12 month program) rather than striving for an Associate or BSN degree because of either a lack of confidence or because they need to enter the workforce as soon as they can. Once they find they can successfully handle college work and that they like nursing, we see many coming back to get their ADN or BSN and becoming registered nurses. We hope this new found confidence will carry over to future generations.
We will continue to target low to very low income families and students, using the annual statistics published by HUD as our guideline, which will help alleviate the nursing shortage and affect positively a socio-economic group that has not generally aspired to higher education.
Requesting organization's information:
Good Samaritan Foundation of Texas, Inc.5615 Kirby Drive, Suite 610
Houston, Texas 77005