Welcome to the HRSA ANEW InTune Grant blog!

Hi, there!  Thanks for visiting the HRSA ANEW InTune grant blog!  You can also visit our website at intune-texas.com.  Here you can learn a lot more about the InTune grant and about how UT Tyler is training advanced practice nurses to care for communities in and around you and your family!

Grant TITLE: INTUNE: An Academic-Practice Partnership Providing Immersive Clinical
Traineeships in Diverse Populations for Primary Care Nurse Practitioners. 1. The term “in tune” means to create harmony between instruments in a musical setting. Similarly, the INTUNE project proposes to create a network of harmonious, innovative academic-practice partnerships that have been carefully crafted to provide primary care and leadership services “in tune” with the needs of a rural/underserved (R/US) population. INTUNE will also foster unique immersive traineeship opportunities for selected nurses enrolled in the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) at The University of Texas at Tyler (UT TYLER). The INTUNE network of clinical partnerships supports the provision of primary care services to a vulnerable population that currently has limited access to consistent primary care services in a medical home, often seeking medical care in local emergency departments. INTUNE proposes to create synergy between existing primary care medical homes, developing on-call, telehealth, and community health coach (CHC) services to optimize communication, providing awareness, encouragement, and guidance through a more easily-navigated healthcare model. The INTUNE model proposes an academic-practice partnership network infrastructure that delivers immersive longitudinal primary care clinical training experiences with R/US populations and facilitates graduates’ employment in those settings. The UT TYLER FNP Program serves a diverse student body from rural Northeast Texas; graduates often return to their own R/US communities to provide primary care.

2. Key objectives of the INTUNE project are: a) to increase the number of R/US clinical sites and qualified preceptors by providing immersive traineeships for FNP students by 8-10% each year; b) to increase the number of FNP students placed in immersive clinical traineeships in R/US clinical sites by 8-10%; c) to increase the number of primary care FNP graduates from UT Tyler FNP Program by 10-15% through financial support of their education; d) to prepare a competent, diverse, practice-ready workforce of team-based primary care practitioners for distribution to R/US areas by maintaining a 95% pass rate on FNP certification exams; e) increase the percentage of ANEW- funded FNP graduates who gain employment in R/US areas, public health settings in state or local health departments, medically underserved areas (MUAs), medically underserved populations (MUPs), or Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) to at least 65%.

3. Who: diverse FNP students (especially from R/US areas), and academic-practice infrastructure (faculty, preceptors, clinics in R/US areas);

What: recruiting and graduating more skilled, practice-ready, team-based FNP to become employed in R/US areas; When: traineeships awarded Spring, 2018;

Where: MUAs, MUPs, or HPSAs;

Why: to increase the numbers of diverse FNP students recruited to/graduating from UT Tyler, and to increase their employment in R/US areas; to improve access to quality healthcare of MUA/MUP/HPSA populations; and, to develop primary care training sites for immersive longitudinal clinical training in R/US areas/populations for enrollees in the UT Tyler FNP programs.

If you are a student interested in a traineeship award, please contact Melinda Morris, Grant Coordinator at mmorris@uttyler.edu

If you are a practicing Nurse Practitioner in Texas and you interested in the rewarding job of teaching students in clinical practice as a preceptor, please contact us, as well!  There are many perks to being a preceptor for the InTune HRSA ANEW Grant, including free library access to the UT Tyler library, free CEUs from the InTune HRSA ANEW website, collaboration with faculty and other professionals in your community, and of course the satisfaction of precepting quality advanced practice students and contributing the future of Nurse Practitioners in Texas.

Also, feel free to comment on this site if you have questions about becoming a Nurse Practitioner, have questions about NP practice guidelines, becoming a preceptor, or being funded by the HRSA InTune ANEW grant.  We look forward to hearing from you!!

Dr. Carol Rizer, DNP, APRN, CRNA-ret.; Project Director; crizer@uttyler.edu; (903) 681-4372

Melinda Morris, Grant Coordinator; mmorris@uttyler.edu; (903) 566-7270