The new health care reform law, the impact of technological innovations, workforce transitions, and a growing, aging population are propelling health system change.
Registered Nurses (RNs) are positioned across the health care system to provide high quality health care, increase access to health care services, and keep costs down. Unfortunately, as our population ages and requires more complex health care, we are facing a shortage of RNs—260,000 over the next 15 years. This paper discusses the education capacity problem and suggested solutions.
This is one paper in a series of reports pertaining to scope of practice—or the range of services an APRN is skilled to provide—produced by the Center to Champion Nursing in America.
CCNA’s seven-part series on nursing education capacity solutions published in the American Journal of Nursing describes a public and private collaborative effort to redesign nursing education to prepare the future nursing workforce.
This report describes the evolving needs of the Medicare population and federal policy changes that would support the preparation of the nursing workforce with the skills necessary to meet those needs. It concludes that Medicare funding for nursing education should be directed toward increasing the education of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses.
The range of nursing care providers described in this document work in a variety of settings including ambulatory care, hospitals, community health centers, public health agencies, long-term care facilities, mental health facilities, war zones, prisons, and schools of nursing, as well as patients’ homes, schools, places of worship, and workplaces. Basically anywhere there are health care needs, nurses can usually be found.
The Center to Champion Nursing in America, a joint initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, commissioned American Viewpoint to conduct a national survey on questions relating to the importance of nursing to health reform initiatives. Three questions were asked on a national omnibus survey conducted immediately after the 2008 presidential election. Telephone interviewing with a random sample of 1,003 adults nationwide was conducted from November 5-9, 2008. Of the total sample, 775 respondents voted in the election.
Nearly nine out of 10 Americans (87%) say that when Congress and the president write health reform laws, it is important for them to address the current shortage of nurses and nursing faculty. Nearly two-thirds (65%) say that it is extremely or very important.
