Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida
Company: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Jacksonville, Florida
Company Description: A leader in Florida’s health care industry for more than 60 years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc. (BCBSF) and its subsidiaries serve more than 8.3 million members. With a diverse workforce of 9,000, BCBSF advances the health and well-being of all Floridians.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program
Nomination Title: Generation RN
1. Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Nurses are in short supply nationwide. In Florida, workforce estimates show the shortage is 34,000 today and growing to 61,000 by 2020. When there is a shortage of nurses, patients suffer and health care costs increase. Even as demand grows, Florida’s educational institutions are struggling to keep pace. A shortage of nurse faculty and, in some cases, funding limits the number of students that can be enrolled in nursing programs. Statewide, thousands of qualified applicants are turned away each year from registered nurse (RN) programs.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF) is addressing this need through strategic philanthropy and championing the cause to engage public/private partnerships. This initiative started in 2004, called Generation RN, is designed to build a stable and culturally diverse nurse workforce.
Generation RN enhances the diversity of the nursing profession through targeted scholarships, promotes retention and advancement of nurses in today’s workforce, and establishes perpetual funding sources for nurse education. This is effective through its partnerships with state legislators, educators and other public and private sector donors.
The company’s focus for 2005 was to create more nurse faculty in order to
graduate more nursing students. By partnering with universities that offer masters and PhDs programs in nursing in support of grant applications for state funding, BCBSF added more than 350 nursing students in the first year alone.
Five universities were awarded grants because of BCBSF’s commitment to contribute endowed funds that will sustain the programs into the future. The endowed funds allow a continual stream of funding – a long-term solution, rather than a short-term fund allocation.
BCBSF’s total philanthropic investment of $1.8 million leveraged public funds of more than $4.5 million and attracted other private donors.
Innovative education programs funded through BCBSF endowments are adding more diversity to the nurse workforce. In South Florida, a consortium of University of Miami, St. Thomas University (a federally designated Hispanic institution) and Florida Memorial University (an historically Black college) initiated through a $1 million endowment, opens a nursing degree track to biology students at the minority colleges. Fall of 2005 saw the first class of more than 25 new nursing students enrolled in the program.
At community colleges where 80 percent of minority students start their higher education and 67 percent of all nurses in Florida are trained, an endowed scholarship program established through a $2.5 million philanthropic investment from BCBSF and matched by the State Legislature will fund an estimated 200 full-time student scholarships every year in perpetuity.
Generation RN is making a significant impact on the nursing shortage, touching each of the state’s 67 counties, all 28 community colleges and virtually every nursing school at public and private universities. The company’s $12 million strategic philanthropic investment to-date has doubled by leveraging state matching funds and attracting additional private donations.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/011106/bus_20781893.shtml
(TU story re: UNF/UF gift: Blue Cross Invests In Training Nurses)
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/011306/opi_20801242.shtml
(TU editorial: Nursing Shortage Addressed)
http://www.unf.edu/development/news/mediarelations/unf_tv/
Campus Connection, UNF's statewide TV
show, is now airing. The story is 6 and a half minutes into the show.
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2006/01/09/daily9.html
JBJ story Blue Cross Donation To Address Nursing Shortage
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2006/02/20/editorial2.html
JBJ-Delaney op-ed: Nurse Shortages Mean Patients Suffer
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2006/01/16/daily21.html
JBJ story Community Colleges Get Nursing Scholarship Money
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2006/03/06/daily28.html
JBJ story Study: Nurse Shortage Linked to Pay
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/BUSI
NESS/201110308&SearchID=73240037404525
GS story: A Gift For Nursing
http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060111gift.php
Independent Florida Alligator: Nursing Receives a Boost
http://www.onyxmagazine.com/aspx/bluecross_news.aspx
Onyx Magazine: UNF/UF donation
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=15264
ffcc donation
http://www.fldoe.org/news/2006/2006_01_18-2.asp
FFCC donation—first scholarship distribution
http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/PartnershipsResource.htm
AACN January 06 news brief UNF/UF
http://www.fldoe.org/cc/
http://www.fldoe.org/cc/BCBSFund/
Additional supporting materials for this entry were submitted offline.
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:
Robert I. Lufrano, M.D. is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc., and Chief Executive Officer.
Lufrano recognizes how important collaboration is to achieve meaningful progress in easing the nursing shortage and through its Generation RN program to support nurse education plus address a critical workforce and health care need in Florida.
Undergraduate studies were at Purdue University. He earned his doctorate in medicine from Loyola University, Stritch School of Medicine. Completed the MBA program at Northwestern University’s J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and postdoctoral studies in medicine at Harvard University and U.C.L.A