The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) will hold the next in its series of webinars that explore recommendations from the Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, on Thursday, May 17.

The webinar, which will take place from1-2 pm EST, will focus on strategies to engage nurses in lifelong learning. It will describe specific programs that support career development for practicing nurses, and explore how utilizing partnerships can leverage lifelong learning program development.

Register for the webinar.

Lean more about the RWJF Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative.

Happy National Nurses Week! Today is National Nurses Day, and the beginning of a week during which we celebrate the contributions of this profession. The week fittingly ends with Florence Nightingale's birthday on Saturday, May 12. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has a proud history of supporting nurses and nurse leadership, so this week, the RWJF Human Capital Blog will feature posts by nurses, including leaders from some of the Foundation’s nursing programs. Check back each day to see what they have to say. This post is by Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, RWJF Senior Adviser for Nursing and Director, Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action.

Earlier this month I had the privilege of traveling to Montana to help some of the state’s health care leaders launch the Montana Cooperative to Advance Health Through Nursing. This new state-based Action Coalition is working to advance recommendations from the Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

While I was there, I met with Native American nursing students and their mentors at Montana State University. They are part of the extraordinarily impressive “Caring for Our Own: A Reservation/University Partnership,” known as the CO-OP program. These students come from desperately underserved areas and, after they graduate, they will go back to their reservations to provide culturally-sensitive, urgently needed care.

At the Action Coalition gala, the recipient of the student award told her story, moving many of us to tears. When she was 17, she tried to commit suicide. It was a nurse who saved her life, and convinced her there were things to live for and gifts she had yet to share. She told the audience that the nurse had been her role model through hard times. It had taken her many years and she had overcome many more hardships, she explained, but she will soon graduate and give back in the same way that her role model had given to her.

She and her peers are the kind of strong, dedicated, caring professionals that nursing needs, our health system needs, and patients need. I came home invigorated and encouraged by all the Montanans I had met, and the promise of progress in this state.

Today is National Nurses Day, which begins the celebration of National Nurses Week. We are a diverse profession, serving patients in more ways, more roles and more settings than Florence Nightingale—whose birthday, May 12, concludes National Nurses Week—could have ever imagined.

I am proud to be a nurse, proud of my colleagues working to help patients all over the country, and proud that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has a long history of supporting nurses in many roles, from research to practice to leadership and more.

RWJF recently announced the launch of the Academic Progression in Nursing (APIN) initiative, which will help state Action Coalitions in their work to advance the recommendation in the Future of Nursing report that 80 percent of the nursing workforce be prepared at the baccalaureate level by 2020.

I am an associate’s degree nurse. I started my nursing education at a community college, and at that time, I’m not sure I could even have imagined getting to where I am today.

By Alexia Green, RN, PhD, FAAN, professor and dean emeritus, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and co-leader of the Texas Action Coalition

Creating and sustaining partnerships is vital to the Texas Team: Advancing Health through Nursing—a state Action Coalition of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. Although the Texas Team was only approved as an official Action Coalition in September 2011, we have been working diligently to recruit and build partners who can support the campaign through 2020.

The various state Action Coalitions—such as the Texas Team—are composed of multiple entities (mostly other organizations), which in turn are composed of multiple individuals. Engaging and maintaining interest and commitment from these multiple entities is a very real challenge for the Texas Team and other newly formed Action Coalitions, but it is vital to all our success in achieving our Institute of Medicine (IOM) goals in our respective states. As leaders we must strive to engage all these partners and promote a common vision toward achieving the IOM goals.

Key to our success in Texas has been the recruitment of BlueCross BlueShield of Texas as our lead business organization for the statewide team. BlueCross BlueShield partners with the Texas Nurses Association as our lead nursing organization to advance the health of Texans through our Coalition activities. The Texas Hospital Association was an early partner and has also been very supportive of our activities.

Other diverse partners that have joined our Coalition include Bell Helicopter. Yes, that’s right, the folks who make helicopters! (And no, they haven’t provided us with any rides yet!) But they are very committed to advancing the health of our state through nursing. Associates in Process Improvement, a group of improvement scientists (yes, those same scientists who work with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement) have also joined us because they too deem nurses integral to the improvement of health care across our nation.

By Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Change is a constant in health care. In the face of skyrocketing costs, system fragmentation, health disparities and an aging and sicker population, more care will be delivered in primary care and community/public health sites than in acute- and hospital-based settings. Yet we also face a primary care shortage and the coming infusion of 32 million newly insured people into the system.

To ensure an adequate supply of nurses with the advanced skills and expertise necessary to help bridge the gap while ensuring quality, higher levels of education are imperative. Thus, health care organizations, educational institutions and others are looking intently at the case for advancing nursing education as outlined in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. Specifically, the IOM report recommended creating a system that produces more nurses educated at the Bachelor of Science (BSN) level and beyond.

Since its inception, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has understood the value of a strong, well-trained health care workforce. And we agree with the IOM report that the nursing profession has the potential to effect wide-reaching changes in the health care system. Further, we concur that an improved education system is necessary to ensure that nurses can continue to deliver safe, quality, patient-centered care required for the 21st century and beyond.

As I recently told NursingOutlookTalk.com, there are a number of things that hospitals and other organizations that employ nurses can do to facilitate education progression. And it is to their benefit to do so.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) yesterday announced the launch of the Academic Progression in Nursing (APIN) initiative, to advance state and regional strategies to create a more highly educated nursing workforce. The $4.3 million, Phase 1 two year-initiative will provide funding to state Action Coalitions as they work to advance the recommendation in the Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, that 80 percent of the nursing workforce be prepared at the baccalaureate level by 2020.

The nine funded Action Coalitions will each work on at least one strategy related to academic progression and at least one related to employment for baccalaureate or higher-prepared nurses, to ensure demand for their services. Thus, academic-service partnerships are key to the success of this effort.

“Our Action Coalitions around the country have generated extraordinary collaboration between nurses and other leaders, who are working together to build a more highly educated and diverse nursing workforce, promote nurse leadership, support interprofessional collaboration, ensure that nurses practice to the full extent of their education and training, and improve data collection,” Susan B. Hassmiller, RN, PhD, FAAN, RWJF senior adviser for nursing, said in a release. “We are confident that the new models they create will be replicable and help achieve our goal to have 80 percent of the nursing workforce be prepared at the baccalaureate level or higher by 2020. Advancing a more highly educated, diverse workforce is essential to achieving the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s mission to improve health and health care in this country.”

The initiative will be led by the Tri-Council for Nursing, consisting of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, National League for Nursing, American Nurses Association and the American Organization of Nurse Executives.

Learn more about the Campaign for Action.

Read more about the Action Coalitions.

Watch the Action Coalition video series.

This week, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) will present the next in a series of webinars exploring recommendations from the Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

The webinar will be Wednesday, March 21 from 12-1 pm EST. It will address the report’s recommendation to increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80 percent by 2020. “Associate and Bachelor Degree Graduates: Differences in QI Participation” will be presented by Maja Djukic, PhD, RN, assistant professor at New York University's College of Nursing.

Register for the webinar.

Lean more about the RWJF Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative.

By California Action Coalition Statewide Director Mary Dickow, MPA

Over the past 16 months, the California Action Coalition has been engaged in a variety of activities to move the work of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Future of Nursing report ahead in our state. As one of the first five pilot states selected to host Action Coalitions, we have had the opportunity to test a few ideas that have been met with success, and we have had opportunities for growth. We feel the lessons we have learned during this period can contribute to the success of other states as they roll out their Action Coalition activities and to all of us who want to get the word out about this groundbreaking report.

One of our most successful initiatives has been overseeing “town hall”-style events to inform a broad audience of our work and to interest new volunteers to join our growing ranks across the state. The Action Coalition held its second statewide town hall event in Los Angeles on February 27, 2012. This “sold out” event, entitled: Partner With Nurses for a Healthy California, was held at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. More than 110 people, including nurses, students, health professionals, consumers and representatives from area businesses and associations, registered for the event.

Twelve new state-based collaborations have been named Action Coalitions by the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative to ensure that all Americans have access to high-quality, patient-centered health care, with nurses contributing to the full extent of their capabilities. Action Coalitions work with the campaign to implement the recommendations of the landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. The coalitions are comprised of nursing, other health care, business, consumer and other leaders across the country.

Action Coalitions announced today include: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont. They join 36 others previously designated by the campaign.

"With this announcement, we are thrilled to have Action Coalitions in nearly every state," said Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior adviser for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and director of Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. "The Campaign for Action is working in states and at every level to build and sustain the changes necessary to improve health care for all Americans."

Learn more about the Campaign for Action.

Read more about the Action Coalitions.

Watch the Action Coalition video series.

By Brent MacWilliams, PhD, ANP, Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Member of the Board of Directors, American Assembly for Men in Nursing

The American Assembly of Men in Nursing (AAMN) is taking a leadership role through strategic partnerships to create a more inclusive and diverse nursing profession. Men have a long, but often unrecognized history, of being successful caregivers.

Historically, men have been culturally relegated to nursing roles that focused on technical and administrative duties on the assumption that the “high-touch” roles were best provided by female nurses. The research, however, fails to support this assumption. What appears to be supported in the literature is that all nurses express their caring values in unique and personal ways. Female nursing peers, fellow health care professionals, and patients find that their male peers and caregivers are both technically competent and caring.

Nurses, regardless of their gender, provide care that is as diverse as the patients we serve. The Institute of Medicine’s report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, underscores the need for a diverse nursing workforce, and that must include a larger proportion of men than we have today. The AAMN is committed to partnering with organizations that share our passion for diversity and that recognize the accomplishments of male nurses. One of our partners, The DAISY Foundation, is a perfect example of a partner organization that supports AAMN’s vision and values.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) has announced a series of webinars that will explore recommendations from the Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

The first in the series, which will address the implementation of nurse residency programs, will be held February 29 from 12-1 pm EST. “Developing and Sustaining the Professional Nursing Organization through New Graduate RN Transition-to-Practice” will be presented by Charles F. Krozek, MN, RN, FAAN, managing partner of Versant Holdings, LLC.

Register for the webinar.

Lean more about the RWJF Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative.