Half a million dollars will be invested in West River nurse training programs over the next two years to better prepare and retain new nurses at Rapid City Regional Hospital.

"We can keep putting out nurses, and nurses, and nurses, but if we don't retain them, we're spinning our wheels," said Ellie Brooks, director of the University of South Dakota's nursing program's Rapid City campus.

Nursing shortages at hospitals are a nationwide problem, but not primarily because of low pay or a lack of people interested in nursing as a career. Rather, hospitals experience a high burnout rate, and few nurses leave clinical practice to be educated to teach at the college level, limiting the number of nurses who can be trained.

Each year, Regional Hospital hires 100 new nurse graduates, but 25 percent are gone within two years, said Nancy Nelson, director of patient services.

"They need someone to guide them," she said.

That's what the new program will provide.

Nursing school and hospital officials on Tuesday morning announced a grant of $250,000 from the Partners Investing in Nursing's Future, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation.

The money goes to the John T. Vucurevich Foundation, and will be matched by $230,000 from that foundation and $10,000 each from the First Interstate Bank Foundation and First Western Bank.

In one part of the program, each of the two university nursing schools will choose one class of eight nursing students to participate in a pilot study where they will get more opportunity to practice clinical skills.

Typically, eight nursing students are supervised by one faculty member. Under the pilot program, the faculty member will supervise four "clinical partners" - nurses at Regional - who each will oversee two students. More supervisors to guide the students will mean more opportunity for them to practice hands-on clinical skills such as administering medication or inserting a catheter or IV.

More practice means the students will be more confident of their skills and more likely to have a positive experience as a first-year nurse.

The skills "aren't things you want to do just once," said Barbara Hobbs, head of the SDSU College of Nursing's West River program.

In a second part of the program, all new nurses hired at Regional will participate in a new, yearlong residency program, where each new nurse will be paired with a mentor who is not her supervisor or preceptor.

The mentors, who participate voluntarily, will be paid a stipend and have the opportunity to take classes in nursing education through the universities. The clinical partners in the training program also will be able to take classes, and program organizers hope this will lead to the development of more nurse educators.

"This grant will help us expand our efforts to ensure that quality nurses are available in western South Dakota for years to come," Brooks said.