Na Lei Kukui Nurse Practitioner Residency Program

The WCCHC Na Lei Kukui Nurse Practitioner Residency Program is a post-graduate residency program that began in 2015 to help new family and adult nurse practitioners expand their competency to deliver comprehensive, patient-centered primary care services. The program offers residents a 12-month, full-time salaried position working directly with specialists and primary care providers to increase their confidence and knowledge in caring for patients – especially those with multiple chronic conditions. In addition to hands-on experience in the clinics, the residents also attend lectures on a variety of subjects that build on their current knowledge of disease processes, treatment options and medications. This innovative program is just one of the ways WCCHC is successfully addressing provider shortages by “growing their own healers.”

The mission of the Na Lei Kukui Nurse Practitioner Program (Lei of Enlightenment and Knowledge) is to provide new Nurse Practitioners with enhanced training and education to meet the intense and complex clinical demands of primary care within a community health center setting, which in turn, produces competent and confident providers able to deliver comprehensive, integrated primary care that improves health outcomes for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities as well as the health system as a whole.

We aim to foster the next generation of Nurse Practitioners to serve the nation's populations that are disproportionally affected with chronic health conditions, of which are Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and in doing so, develop leaders in the health profession who can deliver high quality health care in a community health center setting.

Program Goals

1. Expand access to quality primary care for underserved and special populations and contribute to the clinical workforce by training new nurse practitioners in a community healthcare setting utilizing both traditional face-to-face and virtual telehealth methods of healthcare delivery
2. Expand and strengthen health care access through telehealth for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities that Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center serves.
3. Increase access to treatment of common behavioral health conditions in a primary care setting
4. Increase the number of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) who have completed preceptor training in the state of Hawaii
5. Increase capacity for holistic addiction/pain management treatment on the West Coast of Oahu
6. Improve population health of the Waianae Coast through NP Residency WCCHC Quality Improvement program
7. Increase knowledge of Hawaiian cultural traditions and practices that influence the WCCHC population and health choices
8. Enhance the competence and confidence of residents in providing care for high-risk populations disproportionately affected by social determinants of health (SDOH), and effectively integrate these practices into the primary care practice setting
9. To expand the integration of maternal health into a community-based primary care program
10. Expand Health Care Access to Rural Areas by providing training in the provision of primary care in a rural health setting