Maryjoan Ladden, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

There is near-universal agreement among health care stakeholders and experts that the country needs to grow the number of primary care providers. If the health care system is to meet the growing demand for care that will result from the greying of the Baby Boomers and the influx of millions of newly insured Americans, we're going to need a bigger, better-prepared health care workforce.

That’s a point the 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, made very clearly with respect to nurses. That landmark report also pointed out that health care is becoming increasingly complex as our understanding of illness grows and as the tools and systems we have available to combat it change and evolve.

The National League for Nursing (NLN) last week announced the launch of a new program that will focus on improving the transition of new nurses from education to practice. The “Accelerating to Practice” program is the inaugural program of NLN’s Center for Academic and Clinical Transitions.

A team of experts from nursing education and the nation’s leading hospitals and health systems will draw on existing research to define the competencies new nurses need to be successful on the job. They will develop program courses and content that will be disseminated to the field for implementation in college curricula and/or new staff orientations by 2015.

“The demands placed on today's practicing nurses are intensifying, with sicker patients, more complicated treatments, and electronic medical records all adding new layers of complexity to basic nursing care,” NLN CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, said in a news release. The NLN Center for Academic and Clinical Transitions “will build a bridge between those providing nursing education and those directing nurses in practice. Together, we can develop the solutions and tools today's students need to flourish in this demanding field.”

The NLN Center for Academic and Clinical Transitions is supported by grants from Laerdal Medical and Wolters Kluwer Health. 

Read a news release about the program.

Have you signed up to receive Sharing Nursing’s Knowledge? The monthly Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) e-newsletter will keep you up to date on the work of RWJF’s nursing programs, and the latest news, research, and trends relating to academic progression, leadership, and other critically important nursing issues. These are some of the stories in the September issue:

Wanted: Young Nurse Faculty
Nearly three-quarters of full-time nurse faculty are 50 and older, and the nurse faculty workforce is on the brink of a mass retirement. Most young nurses have chosen to work in other settings, and the insufficient number of young nurse faculty threatens to exacerbate the looming nurse shortage. Read about what is stopping young nurses from entering academia, and how RWJF programs are encouraging faculty careers.

RWJF Fellow Tapped to Head New Diversity Initiative in California
RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Mary Lou de Leon Siantz was tapped in June to head up the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS) at the University of California, Davis, which aims to increase the participation of women, and Latinas in particular, in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. The appointment of a Latina nurse to this high-profile position calls attention to the often overlooked fact that science undergirds the nursing profession, and to the valuable role that women, and Latinas, play in scientific endeavors.

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Pamela A. Kulbok, DNSc, RN, PHCNS-BC, FAAN, is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow. She is the Theresa A. Thomas Professor of Nursing and a professor of public health sciences at the University of Virginia, chair of the Department of Family, Community, and Mental Health Systems, and coordinator of the public health nursing leadership track of the master’s in nursing program.

With the recent release of second edition of the Public Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (American Nurses Association, 2013), now is a perfect time to reflect on the past and look toward the future of public health nursing (PHN). Public health nurses have always focused on improving the health of populations through health promotion and disease prevention. Since the establishment of visiting nursing in Boston and the Henry Street Settlement in New York City in the late 1800s, public health nurses have worked with families and communities in schools and homes, with immigrant populations in industrialized cities, and with rural communities to address challenging social conditions and to promote the health of the public.

It was evident with the founding of the National Organization of Public Health Nurses in 1912 that “something must be done” to prepare nurses with a broader education and emphasis on social conditions and prevention. Today, more than ever before, when health care in the United States is shifting its emphasis from an illness care system to one focused on health promotion and prevention, we need public health nurse generalists and advance practice public health nurses prepared to lead health care reform. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recently released three new videos about the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, a national initiative of RWJF and AARP to implement recommendations from the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report.

The first video describes the Campaign’s history and goals, as well as the work of its Action Coalitions, which are working in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. They have been harnessing the power of nursing to generate real, transformational change for the country’s health care system.

RWJF also produced video interviews with Campaign for Action co-directors Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, RWJF’s senior adviser for nursing, and Susan Reinhard, PhD, RN, AARP’s senior vice president for public policy, in which they discuss their careers and their roles with the Campaign for Action.

Learn more and watch the videos.

The Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, recommended that nurses be empowered and prepared to take leadership roles, becoming full partners in hospitals and other health care settings to redesign health care in the United States.

In this video, produced by the New Jersey Action Coalition, Dave Knowlton, president and CEO of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, and Robert Wise, president and CEO of the Hunterdon Healthcare System, talk about the importance of having nurses in leadership positions on hospital boards.

This is part of the September 2013 issue of Sharing Nursing's Knowledge.

More New Nurse Practitioners Heading to Primary Care

Two recent analyses of workforce data offer new insights into the role nurse practitioners (NPs) are likely to play in combating the coming shortage of primary care providers in the U.S.

The first analysis, commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and released in August, finds that slightly more than half the nation’s nurse practitioners are practicing primary care. In all, 55,625 of the nation’s 106,073 nurse practitioners are in primary care, according to data drawn from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ National Provider Identifier database.

At the same time, an analysis of graduation trends conducted by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow alumna Debra Barksdale, PhD, RN, FAAN, and colleagues, finds that graduation rates for NPs suggest more help is on the way. According to Barksdale’s reading of data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, 84 percent of NP graduates in 2012 were prepared in primary care. That represents an eye-catching 18.6 percent increase from 2011 to 2012.

This is part of the September 2013 issue of Sharing Nursing's Knowledge.

“When Malia and Sasha were being born, we spent 90 percent of the time with the nurses and 10 percent with the OB/GYN. When my grandmother got sick and was passing away at the end, it was nurses who were caring for her in an incredibly compassionate but also professional way. And you’re absolutely right that one of the keys to reducing our health care costs overall is recognizing the incredible value of advanced practice nurses and giving them more responsibilities because there’s a lot of stuff they can do in a way that, frankly, is cheaper than having a doctor do it, but the outcomes are just as good … we have to upgrade a little bit the schools of nursing and make sure that they’re properly resourced so that we have enough instructors. And, in fact, as part of the Affordable Care Act, one of the things that we thought about was how are we going to expand and improve the number of nurses and making sure that they can actually finance their educations. And so there are some special programs for nurses who are committing themselves—as well as doctors who are committing themselves—to serving in underserved communities.”
-- President Barack Obama, Remarks by the President in Town Hall at Binghamton University, WhiteHouse.gov, August 23, 2013

“One of the nurses showed me some of the babies who were close to my size when I was an infant and I was able to see the babies that were grown and ready to go home. The nurses also offered me tips on how to become a nurse, that I would go through a four-year program to get my BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) degree, as well as training in a nursing program, and then a MSN (Masters of Science in Nursing) degree… I felt so connected to the babies. It’s incredible that I was once like them … I think my visit made my hope to become a NICU nurse even greater.”
-- Samantha Konwai, high school student, Saint Peter’s Welcomes Former Preemie as She Pursues Career as Neonatal Nurse, Home News Tribune, August 19, 2013

In the latest installment in its “Quest for Care” series that looks at the country’s shortage of health care providers, NBC News reported over the weekend on the nursing workforce.  As the nation struggles to train enough nurses to care for an aging population and the influx of patients who will be newly insured because of health care reform, one thing is holding them back: a shortage of nurse faculty.

“Just as the country needs nurses the most, a shortage of professors is curbing the capacity of nursing schools to crank out graduates with advanced degrees,” the story says, citing data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing that nursing schools are turning away tens of thousands of qualified applicants because they lack the faculty to teach them.

The College of Nursing at the University of South Carolina is turning away a few hundred students each year for that very reason, its dean, Jeanette Andrews, told NBC. Andrews, PhD, RN, is an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Fellows program.

But nurse faculty are hard to find: they need advanced degrees, and leaving the field for the classroom often requires nurses to take a pay cut. Hospitals and other care settings are competing for the same skilled nurses that colleges need, experts say.

“I have five faculty positions open right now,” Andrews added. “It is really hard to find qualified, doctorally prepared faculty who are willing to relocate or to move out of a higher-paying salary in the field.”

See the story from NBC News.
Learn more about the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows program.