Hudson Santos, Dean, University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies

Invest: spoke with Hudson Santos, dean of the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies, about workforce development, community-driven research, and local partnerships designed to move proven interventions into practice. “The school is part of the community; it is not an add-on on top of the community,” Santos said.

What is the strategic vision for the School of Nursing and Health Studies, and how does it build on UM’s mission of excellence?
The vision is to address the most pressing healthcare needs in our community and across the nation by training outstanding nurses and allied health professionals. When you consider the scale of nursing in the U.S., it is one of the largest workforces in healthcare, and communities rely on those providers to stay healthy. Because of that, our responsibility is to deliver the strongest preparation possible.

That means building top-tier academic programs and advancing research that improves healthcare delivery in Miami and beyond. For us, education, research, and community service are connected. We train people, generate evidence, and apply what we learn so the community benefits from better care and better outcomes.

What does the current research landscape look like, particularly around major initiatives such as the Miami ECHO Project, and how do these efforts address health disparities?
We have a strong research portfolio and are among the top private schools in the nation for research expenditures. But our emphasis is not research for its own sake. We focus on real-world problems, especially where outcomes differ across populations.

In Miami, that includes research on health disparities affecting ethnic minority and immigrant communities, as well as maternal and child health. We also study prevention strategies related to youth risk behaviors, including substance use and unsafe sexual behaviors, and we build interventions and clinical trials aimed at reducing those risks.

ECHO is an example of our long-term approach. It is a large NIH-funded national study examining how environmental factors shape child health and development, and Miami is one of the study sites. The work helps us understand how to support healthier outcomes for children regardless of the conditions they are born into, and how to prepare for the needs our community will face years from now.

Overall, our areas of strength include maternal and child health, substance use prevention, immigrant health, and health disparities. We try to start with the community’s needs and then use research to deliver solutions that are relevant, timely, and practical.

The school is expanding its research and strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration. Who are your key external partners, and how do you leverage those partnerships?
We have more than 200 active partnerships in the region, along with additional partners abroad. Key health system partners include the University of Miami Health System and Jackson Health System, along with organizations such as HCA and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. We also work closely with federally qualified community health centers and a wide range of community organizations.

Those relationships include partners serving high-risk populations, such as clinics and organizations supporting survivors of human trafficking and people experiencing homelessness. We invest in these partnerships because the school is not separate from the community. The school is part of the community; it is not an add-on on top of the community.

Partnerships are a two-way relationship. We listen to what partners are trying to achieve and the challenges they are facing, and we work together to align resources, talent, and expertise to address urgent health issues. If someone is part of our community and reaches out with a need, we want them to be able to come to us, and we will sit down and work through how to address that need in a way that is realistic and collaborative.

How are your academic programs evolving to meet the future needs of the healthcare workforce?
Our structure is different from many institutions because we are a School of Nursing and Health Studies. We offer nursing programs alongside health sciences programs, which helps us train providers who understand how care is delivered across settings and disciplines.

On the nursing side, there is a continued need to prepare more entry-level nurses, and we do that through a traditional bachelor’s pathway and an accelerated option for people who already hold a bachelor’s degree in another field. The accelerated program is an intensive one-year pathway that delivers the same curriculum and clinical hours in a compressed format, helping qualified students enter the workforce more quickly and take the NCLEX at the end of the program.

We also place strong emphasis on advanced practice because the shortage is not limited to nurses. There are broader shortages of healthcare providers, particularly in primary care, and advanced practice nurses can help fill those gaps. Advanced practice training allows nurses, in many states, to practice at the top of their license, take on more interventions, and collaborate closely with physician partners. Our programs include family nurse practitioners, primary care for older adults, acute care, psychiatric mental health, oncology, and leadership. Building this pipeline helps expand access to care in underserved areas and supports rising demand for primary care across South Florida.

On the health studies side, we offer undergraduate programs in public health and health studies, including pre-health tracks such as pre-med, pre-dentistry, pre-occupational therapy, and pre-physical therapy. We are also opening programs that support team-based care, including occupational health and speech pathology.

One newer area is implementation science. In healthcare, effective interventions can take 10 to 15 years to reach everyday practice. Implementation science focuses on identifying interventions that work and translating them into real-world settings faster, including adapting evidence-based approaches so people can realistically use them in the environments where they live and receive care.

Looking ahead, what’s your vision for the School of Nursing and Health Studies in the coming years, and what are your top priorities?
The goal is to re-engineer how we train healthcare providers so they are prepared to address complex health issues through a community needs perspective. Miami is a dynamic, diverse environment, and it offers a unique training ground for providers who need to be adaptable and responsive to change. In many ways, Miami is one of the first places to feel shifts in population, demand, and innovation, so we want our graduates to be prepared for what comes next.

Priorities include expanding programs to introduce different levels of expertise into the workforce while maintaining the highest standards of competency. We focus closely on outcomes, including board pass rates, because they reflect whether we are equipping students with the knowledge and skills required to earn licensure and practice safely, and to serve patients with confidence from day one.

We have set a high bar for ourselves. Several programs, including undergraduate nursing, acute care, and anesthesia, have achieved 100% board pass rates, and we work to sustain that level of performance as we grow. Ultimately, success looks like graduates who can meet community needs, contribute to healthier outcomes, and bring evidence-based care into practice faster.