LAS COLINAS, Texas — As hospitals across the country continue to struggle with a shortage of trained nurses in the industry, more Texas universities are expanding their offerings to train new nurses quickly.

What You Need To Know

  • Numerous hospitals are dealing with nurse shortages as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on 

  • In response, universities are expanding nursing programs and fast-tracking students to graduation

  • Among them is Concordia University, which is expanding its program to the Dallas-Fort Worth area 

  • The Concordia Las Colinas location is anticipated to be up and running in 2022

Concordia University Texas may be the latest example as it prepares to expand its already-established nursing program to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Kathy Williams toured the currently empty sixth floor space in a Las Colinas office building that will be transformed into the school’s new campus by the end of the year.

“It’s got a ways to go,” said Williams, looking around the space that she will soon lead as head of the new North Texas program. “It’s hard for me to imagine.”

However, she said the program and curriculum they’ll bring into that space, when finished, is very clear in her mind. Crews are building a state-of-the-art nursing training lab which will include robotic patients that professors can program to run students through different scenarios and situations. Concordia already has a similar lab in Central Texas that students such as senior Naomi Clardy train in daily.

“Very real. Basically, it’s like you walk in and it’s like a hospital room setup,” said Clardy. “And you get to practice with, like, real stuff that we’ll use when we’re in the nursing field.”

Clardy said she attends the school on a traditional four-year program but many of her students, and the ones who will attend the new Las Colinas campus, are on an accelerated path to graduate in only 16 months.

Accelerated nursing programs are growing as an option for students with several Texas colleges and universities now offering. Universities like Concordia, Baylor, Texas A&M, TCU, Texas Tech and multiple in the UT system list accelerated nursing program offerings that range from 12-16 month program; each school also lists varying eligibilities and requirements for enrollment.

Williams said the programs are intense but are aimed to meet an important need: chipping away at that nursing shortage plaguing the industry.

“I would say I’ve had a nursing shortage my entire career,” said Williams, adding that the problem has certainly hit new heights in the past year. “I think the piece of COVID on top of everything has just really pushed nursing and health care to the limits.”

Among some of the reasons industry experts cite for the shortage are an aging nursing population and lack of space in existing nursing programs to train new people.

Williams hopes Concordia’s new space in DFW will help that space problem because she said despite the challenges nurses and health care workers have faced over the past few years, students with a passion for the business are still showing up in big numbers. 

“We’ve already accepted our first student,” said Williams. “Even a program spread out over four years is really intense, but one year, you are really focused.”

Concordia plans to be up and running in the new space by January 2022.