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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Health Care Community Invests $1 Million in MCC Nursing Program


A collaborative effort among local hospitals, insurers and Monroe Community College has resulted in a commitment of $1 million over a five-year period to increase the number of graduates from MCC's nursing program. The effort, facilitated by Sandra A. Parker, president of The IMC, is a direct response to the nursing shortage that is impacting health care in Rochester and across the country.

In an announcement made yesterday (Nov. 7) at MCC, Strong Health, ViaHealth, Unity Health System, Excellus Health Plan, Inc., and Preferred Care each will contribute $40,000 per year for the next five years toward staffing and infrastructure support at MCC. As a result, the number of associate degree graduates from the nursing program will increase by about 30 percent (i.e., 30 more graduates) per year.

"MCC's responsiveness and the proactive problem solving and cooperation demonstrated by the hospital systems and insurers to address the issue of a nursing shortage is commendable," Parker said. "Collaboration such as this is essential to effectively improving the quality and reducing the cost of health care in Rochester."

"The MCC nursing program is currently fully-enrolled, with lecture, conference and clinical classes all operating at maximum capacity," said MCC President R. Thomas Flynn. "Thanks to this partnership among these key health care players and MCC, we will be able to add new faculty to our Nursing and Biology departments and provide resources for other services which will enable us to educate more nursing students for this community."

The program expansion will begin in January 2003; larger cohorts of graduates will begin in December 2004. Currently, MCC graduates on average 100 nursing students each year, more than all of the other nursing programs in Monroe County combined.

For more feedback from our community partners on MCC's role in helping to resolve the nursing shortage, please visit the MCC News page at www.monroecc.edu <https://www.monroecc.edu>.

Rosanna Condello
Public Affairs
11/08/2002