Lee Health receives $4 million gift to boost nursing scholarship program

A Southwest Florida resident who started a private scholarship program for nursing staff at Lee Health is funding the program indefinitely.

Mark Ain, a former patient at Gulf Coast Medical Center, started Heart of Caring scholarships in 2014, which has awarded scholarships to 19 CNA’s who have earned their bachelor of science degrees in nursing.

Recently he provided a $4 million gift to the Lee Health Foundation to make the scholarship program operate in perpetuity.

Hospitals nationally have faced a nurse shortage which impacts quality of care, patient satisfaction and hospital metrics. The shortage worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lee Health regularly has 100 nurse vacancies or more, according to hospital officials. In late February it reported 231 openings for bedside registered nurses out of 3,900 registered nurses doing bedside care. All together, Lee Health has 4,657 nurses.

Florida is expected to be short nearly 60,000 nurses by 2035, coupled with steep climbs in labor costs, according to the Florida Hospital Association.

More: Lee Health becoming a private nonprofit hospital. What you need to know

The publicly operated Lee Health operates four acute care hospitals and a children’s hospital. The system has 1,865 beds and a $3 billion operating budget.

What’s new?

The scholarships going forward through the Heart of Caring program will be available to all nurses, even those seeking advanced degrees, according to Chris Simoneau, chief development, marketing and communications officer for the nonprofit system.

“This gift ensures that his support of Lee Health nursing development continues forever,” Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and chief executive officer of Lee Health, said in a news release. “His personal experience with our nurses shows that they are the backbone of our health care system.”

The scholarships have covered application fees, tuition, books and related expenses, and they have provided stipends for the CNAs who were in bachelor of science degree programs to advance their careers. In exchange, they commit to working for Lee Health for two years after completing their degree programs.

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“As a former trustee of the Lee Health Foundation, (Ain) knows the importance of endowments to provide long term support for programs that are instrumental to great health care. His commitment to the nursing profession is remarkably generous and timely,” Simoneau said.

When fully funded at $4 million, the endowment will provide $200,000 annually to fund nursing development, he said.

“This is the equivalent of what (he) has provided in annual gifts for the past few years,” Simoneau said.

The number and amount for scholarships depends on where the students do their studies and for how long.

Students often qualify for other financial aid, so it’s hard to say exactly how many there would be in any one year.

“However, in the past we have funded at least one scholarship for nurses at each of the five hospitals, and have also funded educational symposiums that have benefitted nurses from across the system,” he said. “We plan to do the same into the future.”

How did Ain become successful?

In 1977, Ain founded Kronos, a global workforce management software provider which became a highly successful technology company.

In 1979, the company created the first patented microprocessor-based time clock. The company in 1992 became a publicly traded company but went private again in 2007 when it was bought out by lead investor Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity for $1.74 billion. In 2020 it merged with Ultimate Software.

Ain earned his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master of business administration degree from the University of Rochester.

He and his wife, Carolyn, have been active philanthropists whose impact is felt across the country, including Southwest Florida, where the Ain Technology and Design Hub within Florida Gulf Coast University’s Daveler & Kauanui School of Entrepreneurship honors the couple’s generosity.

Ain said he was “blown away with the care” of Lee Health medical staff after his hospitalization, particularly the CNAs.

In a position to give back, Ain asked how he could help.

“I called the Lee Health Foundation and said I’d like to do something for the CNAs,” Ain said in a news release. “They told me there was an education program that did not make the budget cut that year, and I said, ‘It just did.’”

“I am delighted to be in a position where we can support the professional development and growth of nurses and CNAs that will in turn support the community,” Ain said.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Lee Health scholarship program gains funding to operate in perpetuity.