(1) Subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for this specific purpose, the legislature intends to expand the student nurse preceptor grant program to help reduce the shortage of health care training settings for students and increase the numbers of nurses in the workforce.
(2)(a) The grant program shall provide incentive pay for individuals serving as clinical supervisors to nursing candidates with a focus on acute shortage areas including those in rural and underserved communities and long-term care facilities. The desired outcomes of the grant program include increased clinical opportunities for nursing students. In part, increased clinical opportunities shall be achieved through reducing the required number of qualifying hours of precepting clinical instruction per student from 100 to 80. The *commission shall consult with collective bargaining representatives of nurses who serve as clinical supervisors in the development of the grant program.
(b) The *commission shall submit a report, in accordance with RCW
43.01.036, to the office of financial management and the appropriate committees of the legislature by September 30, 2025, on the outcomes of the grant program. The report must include:
(i) A description of the mechanism for incentivizing supervisor pay and other strategies;
(ii) The number of supervisors that received bonus pay and the number of sites used;
(iii) The number of students that received supervision at each site;
(iv) The number of supervision hours provided at each site;
(v) Initial reporting on the number of students who received supervision through the programs that moved into a permanent position with the program at the end of their supervision; and
(vi) Recommendations to scale up the program or otherwise recruit nurse preceptors in shortage areas.