Building Nurse Capacity in Africa

The Distance-based, Executive-style Degree Completion Program for Ghanaian Nurse Anesthetists project team, part of Bass Connections in Global Health, is helping to train nurse anesthetists to address the shortage of trained providers in Ghana. Sub-Saharan Africa carries 25 percent of the world’s disease burden yet has just 3 percent of the global health workforce.

Brett Morgan, DNP, CRNA, and his interdisciplinary team partnered with the University for Development Studies in Tamale, Ghana, to create a distance-based curriculum to train nurse anesthetists who are already practicing. It is the first program of its kind in Africa.

“Ghana has a population of more than 25 million people, but the country only has 500 nurse anesthetists and 25 anesthesiologists in the entire country,” said Morgan. “With an already limited number of anesthesia health care workers, it was important for them to obtain additional education that wouldn’t remove them from their work.”

The team’s main goals are improving technology, creating a hands-on curriculum where nurses can practice and hone their skills through simulations, and fostering mentorships among faculty, researchers and students.

Read the article from the Nursing Leadership Exchange at the Duke School of Nursing and learn how to get involved with Bass Connections.