The recently formed Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Health system added 7 new partners on Monday, expanding across Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties, home to 3.2 million people and one of the hardest-hit spots of the statewide nursing shortage.

The university’s newest partners are Baptist Health South Florida (including Bethesda Hospital and Boca Raton Regional Hospital), Caridad Center, Cleveland Clinic Florida, Jupiter Medical Center, Tenet Healthcare, West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System, and Palm Beach Atlantic University.

“The FAU Health Network — a true collaboration that brings together the region’s already robust health care infrastructure — will help save lives and cure diseases,” said Julie Pilitsis, M.D., Ph.D., dean and vice president for medical affairs, Florida Atlantic University‘s Schmidt College of Medicine. “Collectively, we are stronger. Together, we will help make our community an even greater place than it is today.”

The all-encompassing partnerships will enhance clinical trials and provide access to medical innovations to the local population, focus health care needs matched to the region’s population, and provide localized solutions that will eliminate the need for travel for services only available outside the region, according to the school.

A chief priority of the partnership is predicated on the recognition of a need to address the shortage of doctors and nurses through the implementation of enhanced medical education programs, accelerated medical research innovation, and access to clinical trials.

“This collaboration will bring together the vital health components that exist separately across the region,” said Darcy J. Davis, chief executive officer of the Health Care District of Palm Beach County. “The growing patient population in our community will benefit from expanded access to innovative care.”

FAU Health was formed last week in order to serve as an academic health network that harbors collaboration between the region’s leading public and private academic and medical leaders through an increase in resident training programs. Expanded academic accessibility aims to allow for innovative solutions necessary to tackle the workforce crisis with a shared goal to expand annual enrollments to graduate more than 300 nurses, 104 medical doctors, and 150 social workers per year.

Resident training programs will also expand to address the doctor shortage.

Original partnered health networks include Broward College, Palm Beach State College, Memorial Healthcare System, Health Care District of Palm Beach County, and Broward Health.