With many baby boomers retiring, there is a large nurse shortage growing by the day. The demand for nurses will create over a million new jobs, and is already lifting nursing wages. Studying nursing online allows you to improve your career and salary with flexible hours that work around your current schedule.
University of Phoenix - - Certificates, Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's, & Doctoral Degrees. Known as the leader in the online education space, U of P offers flexible online courses that help you work around your career.
Kaplan University - Certificates, Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's Degrees. As one of the biggest names in education, Kaplan has taken their coursework and testing expertise and applied them to online courses, making degrees available in as little as 12 months.
Capella University - Bachelor's, Master's, & Doctoral Degrees. Capella is known for offering a wide array of graduate level online nursing programs.
Walden University - Master's and Doctoral Degrees. Walden specializes in post-graduate learning, offering a variety of Master's level education programs.
A large chunk of Oklahoma is rural: students living remotely face educational challenges when it comes to college, healthcare faces challenges in providing adequate healthcare and nursing resources to remote communities. Unique to the State of Oklahoma is an aggressive system of technical career education. Check out the list below and you’ll notice the few dozen technology centers that comprise well over half the list. These nursing schools specialize in delivering the Practical Nursing programs. Candidates are trained and prepared for their LPN license which allows them to work in some areas in hospitals, but primarily in smaller community hospitals, nursing homes and doctor’s offices—not ironically areas of high nursing need.
However, there remains a larger shortage of nurses in the state, especially in the hospitals. RNs are preferred for their more expansive scope of practice, with supplemental LPNs mixed into various patient care settings. To offset some of the shortage LPN-to-RN educational programs have increased as a means to tap the current LPNs.
Advanced Practice Nurses—Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse Midwives, Clinical Nurse Specialists, and Certified Registered Nurses of Anesthesia—are also in high demand in various types of clinics and medical centers. Because most are able to work independently of a physician, they are more affordable and some cases, more effective at building long-standing patient-caregiver relationships. Tip: Many recruiters offer loan repayment incentives for APRNs.
When it comes to directing the scope of work of licensed nurses in the state, that responsibility lies with the Oklahoma Board of Nursing. Use this resource to get information on the following: