Belmont University has been awarded a $1.5 million 2Gen Family Wellbeing Program grant from the Tennessee Department of Human Services. Funds from the grant will support the work of the Belmont Ministry Center and the adjacent nonprofit, The Store, in providing local, low income families support through food provision, nutritional and pharmacy education, health screenings, legal aid clinics, mental health counseling and music therapy. The Belmont Ministry Center opened on 12 South last year to offer services to the community while a groundbreaking was recently held for The Store, a free grocery store founded by Belmont alumnus Brad Paisley and his wife Kimberly Williams Paisley.
Saint Thomas Medical Partners (STMP) has received a $69,972 grant from Susan G. Komen Central Tennessee. The funding will be used for Our Mission in Motion (OMIM), STMP's mobile mammography program that has screened 21,111 women at 1,420 events since 2011. In addition, the physician-led medical group was awarded $10,000 from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. This award will fund biopsies and diagnostic mammograms and ultrasounds for low-income Middle Tennessee women.
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has received two awards totaling more than $5 million from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to increase the number of nurse practitioners working in rural and underserved communities where there aren't enough primary care providers. In response to the growing need for mental health services, both awarded programs will have a psychiatric/mental health component that integrates behavioral health into the primary care setting. The school received a $2.7 million award to support the development of a learning track within VUSN's family nurse practitioner (FNP) program that will focus specific education on serving rural and underserved populations and building collaborations with health agencies. Funded under HRSA's Advanced Nursing Education Workforce (ANEW) initiative, the Collaborative Academic-Practice (CAP) Program will recruit and graduate a minimum of 60 FNPs over the course of the grant. VUSN's second HRSA grant will create a primary care nurse practitioner residency program to prepare and increase the number of new nurse practitioners practicing in rural and underserved communities.
Last month, Nashville-based HealthTrust awarded two member organizations, Centura Health and Boston Medical Center, with Innovation Grants valued at $50,000 each to improve healthcare delivery through new, scalable ideas that can be adopted by other HealthTrust members. Centura will use the funding to expand a virtual pharmacy service that links patients and pharmacists via videoconferencing. Based on its successful implementation of a High Performance Team (HPT) in Vascular Surgery, Boston Medical Center will apply its grant to create a network of HPTs throughout the institution to reduce medical errors and post-operative complications.
Launch Tennessee was one of 24 organizations in the country to receive a Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
