Director's Message: Nursing Education Capacity Article Series Launched

Happy New Year!

Thank you for your continued interest in CCNA, and especially in our work to ensure that nursing leaders across the country can learn from one another as we embark on this next phase of health reform. In an effort to ensure that as many people as possible know about innovations designed to increase capacity in nursing education, we have launched a high-profile series of articles in the American Journal of Nursing (AJN).

In this unprecedented seven-part series, AJN will publish summaries from two national nursing summits held in 2008-2009, as well as an article on the ongoing technical assistance (TA) program that CCNA is leading in 30 states across the nation. As you may know, our TA program is focused on strengthening state-level solutions to nursing education that can help increase the number of highly-qualified registered nurses nationally.

I encourage you to read the first article in the series, “Forging Partnerships to Expand Nursing Education Capacity,” to get a more in-depth view of the lessons learned from the multi-stakeholder, national meetings and to stay tuned for the upcoming articles that will be published in AJN through July. The Web site is www.AJNonline.com.

The second article in the series, to be published in February, will describe the ongoing technical assistance provided by CCNA. From March through July, individual state teams will be profiled to help shine an even brighter light on the incredible work being done at the state level including California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Oregon. These state teams, among others, have been working to inform state policy related to nursing education and to implement innovative education redesign initiatives; they are seeing real results from their efforts to bring more nurses into the workforce and to meet the ever-increasing demand from consumers for high-quality health care. Our hope is that the success these states are experiencing can be replicated in other states nationwide.

Here’s to our collective progress and success and a healthier 2010 for all Americans!