Mapping the Future of Nursing

We recently marked a historic day for nursing. The meeting “Partnering to Transform Healthcare in Pennsylvania,” part of a national effort, brought together more than 200 nurses and nursing students here at Penn earlier this month to discuss an action plan for the future of healthcare in the state. It is clear that nurses in Pennsylvania have great potential – and responsibility -- to make much-needed changes to the healthcare system.

To this end, the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, a co-leader of the Pennsylvania Action Coalition, joined a 50-state campaign to advance the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine’s 2010 Future of Nursing report. Leading the campaign are the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the Center to Champion Nursing in America, and the AARP Foundation.

Chaired by Julie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Nightingale Professor at Penn Nursing, the steering committee of the Pennsylvania Action Coalition is developing a mission statement and strategic plan -- or “map” – to meet the IOM’s recommendations in Pennsylvania.

Time is of the essence. Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the nation among states with a population aged 65 and older, after Florida, West Virginia, and Maine, according to the 2010 Census, with similarly high rates of diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. The demand for healthcare providers of course is growing in tandem.
To meet the increasing healthcare needs of the U.S. population, the IOM report recommended:

• Increasing the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80 percent by 2020
• Doubling the number of nurses with a doctoral degree by 2020
• Developing nurse leaders to advance health
• Building an infrastructure for the collection and analysis of interprofessional healthcare workforce data to ensure equitable distribution of resources.
Advancing the education of nurses is particularly important. The national average for nurses with a bachelor’s degree is about 50 percent, and in Pennsylvania it is about 41 percent. Susan Hassmiller, senior adviser for nursing with RWJF, spoke not about a so-called “nursing shortage,” but about a faculty shortage. Estimates show that some 3,000 eligible nursing students are turned away every year by education programs in Pennsylvania for insufficient numbers of faculty to teach them.
As she pointed out, having more highly educated healthcare professionals will lead to safer and more effective care, and having more nurse practitioners and midwives in practice would help create a more cost-effective system.

The Pennsylvania Action Coalition will next establish regional coalitions co-led by a nurse and a non-nurse partner.  This is where the real work will take place. When you are called to participate, I urge you to join.

You have a role in ensuring more equitable care, state-by-state, in a country in increasing need of it.

Welcome to the Golden Age of Nursing

We were so proud to have Dr. Donna Shalala, a revered public servant and current president of the University of Miami, speak to our graduates at Commencement last week. As chair of the Committee on the Future of Nursing for the Institute of Medicine, Dr. Shalala emphasized that healthcare systems around the world are poised to benefit from the expertise of nurses at a higher and more expansive level than ever.

With the passage of the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act, the discipline of nursing is front and center. We must seize the moment by investing in nurse scientists and advancing the scholarly field of nursing science. Scholarship in nursing is vital for developing and translating best practices for quality care. The objective of a research career is to provide the evidence for equitable, quality healthcare for all populations. Of course the ultimate goal is to develop policies and practice standards that positively influence the care of all people.

To achieve that, academic and practice institutions must uphold and fortify their research mission.

On a recent visit to Universidad de Costa Rica, I spoke about creating a culture of scholarship. In sum, the keys are:

• Practice – Having an engaged and well-supported practice program
• PhD Education – Preparing nurses for the highest level of competency and integrity
• Passion for the Discipline – Inculcating a strong identity and integrating research and practice
• Post-Doctoral Education – Supporting novice scholars
• Protecting Researchers – Providing time, mentorship and support
• Productive Communities – Creating environments that value scholarship, mentoring, and intellectual engagement
• Partnerships – Creating local, national and global relationships, and clinical-academic partnerships
• Policies -- Knowing and influencing healthcare priorities and research agendas and using media to market findings.

We are on the threshold of the Golden Age of Nursing. Today’s graduates are beginning their nursing careers at the best possible time. Let us ensure that every door is open to them and to every nurse scientist.

Future of Nursing Initiative Front and Center at Penn

To the School of Nursing Community,

I am writing to alert you to a very important upcoming event for our School. On Thursday, October 14, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. we will host the Pennsylvania launching of the Future of Nursing report here in our School. You may know that the Future of Nursing Initiative, which is co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine and led by President Donna Shalala, was established with a goal of examining the capacity of the nursing workforce to meet the demands of a reformed health care and public health system.

This initiative, which was launched in 2008, addresses the future of nursing and the need to transform the nursing profession and is structured in three parts: development of the recommendations and a framework for action that will emerge from the 18 month consensus study, a national conference to be held in early December, 2010 that will bring together stakeholders to develop strategies for how the report recommendations can be implemented, and an implementation phase.

The findings and recommendations of the Future of Nursing Committee will be formally and publicly launched on October 5th, 2010 in Washington, DC. Our event, which will be based on this report, will include a presentation by Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a panel presentation that will include Dr. George Thibault, President and CEO of the Macy Foundation and our own Dr. Julie Fairman, who has worked closely with the Future of Nursing Committee, and Dr. Julie Sochalski, who was (in 2009-2010) the AAN-AARP Senior Policy Fellow in Washington, DC working on health care reform “from the front row.” Governor Rendell has also been invited as our special guest.

This initiative comes at a critical time during the health care reform debate, and will provide a blueprint for the nursing profession to proactively meet the demands of a reformed health care system that will offer greater access, higher quality, and more cost-effective care to the American public. To move towards these goals, the nursing profession will have to work with various stakeholders at the national, regional and local levels to set in motion some of the changes that will be needed in health policy, public and private funding, education programs, practice environments, and payment mechanisms. Nurses, physicians, and other health professionals, state and local officials, insurers, health profession educators and other groups all have a stake in how the recommendations are implemented. Part of the purpose of our symposium will be to bring together Philadelphia area stakeholders to learn first-hand about the specific report recommendations and its implications, as well as to begin a dialogue about how we might work together to move them forward to implementation. We see this symposium as the beginning of a process to maximize our collective efforts to improve health care for the citizens of our region.

As members of this community, we all must play a part in and take responsibility for successful health care reform and the findings of this initiative will be a critical component as we move forward. With this in mind, we invite each member of our community to join us on Wednesday, October 14, at 3:00 pm here in Claire M. Fagin Hall to learn more about this important initiative and to participate in these critical dialogues.