WHEATLAND--The Banner Health Clinic in Wheatland received the 2019 Community Partner Award from the University of Wyoming’s Doctor of Nursing Program (DNP) this year.
For the past 15 years, Banner Health has partnered with the nurse practitioner program at the University of Wyoming helping students gain real-world experience with clinical rotations, and more recently, supporting students with required quality improvement projects needed to complete their programs. The training offered to nurse practitioner students include relation-centered, community-focused and team-based primary care.
“We would not be able to have a family nurse practitioner program without this partnership,” Ann Marie Hart, University of Wyoming DNP Program Director, said. Banner Health regularly welcomes family nurse practitioner students to put their skills to the test during their family practice rotations at the clinic.

Hart said the Wheatland clinic in particular has become a rural health training ground for the students to treat patients for acute care, chronic care, wellness visits, mental health care and more.
Banner Health, in turn, has hired four of the nurse practitioner graduates and continues to elevate its training program with the introduction of quality improvement projects this year.
This year’s project focused on increasing the rates that patients sign up and use the online patient portal for the acute care clinic. Hart said the project was so successful the clinic has plans to roll it out clinic-wide.
Banner Health Clinic is located at 1551 Brice St., Wheatland, Wyoming, 82201. To learn more about Banner Health, visit www.bannerhealth.com.