The Challenge
According to Melissa Burdi, Dean and Vice President of Purdue Global School of Nursing, around 100,000 nurses left the profession between 2021 and 2023. Clearly there was an urgent need to attract and retain talent. As national educators, Purdue Global could play a vital role in increasing the pipeline of nurses, but there was a problem: traditional nursing training wasn’t designed for working adults.
Many of Purdue Global’s nursing students have existing careers and families. Juggling so many obligations, they don’t have the time or money to travel to specific locations to learn.
And yet traditional nursing training mostly happens in on-site clinical spaces, using physical mannequins. Lack of access to these classrooms and a shortage of teachers makes it difficult for students to gain enough hands-on experience. As a result, the number of nurses aged 30-39 entering the profession has dropped alarmingly.
The challenge for Melissa and her team was to come up with an engaging way to train new nurses and upskill existing ones by making courses accessible to people across the US who may not otherwise have the opportunity to practice nursing skills.
