Seven-part series on Nursing Education Capacity Solutions to be published in the American Journal of Nursing

For Immediate Release: January 5, 2010 

Best in Nursing Education Capacity Solutions to Be Featured in Series of Articles American Journal of Nursing to Profile State Practices with Proven Results

Washington, DC – With the anticipated passage of health reform legislation and the resulting increase in patient demand for health care services, nursing leaders continue to look for the best ways to ensure there will be enough nurses to provide that care. Beginning today, the American Journal of Nursing will examine this issue in greater detail in a seven-part series, “Uniting States, Sharing Strategies.”

The first article, “Forging Partnerships to Expand Nursing Education Capacity,” summarizes key lessons learned from two national nursing events that occurred in 2008 and 2009, and served as a launching point for sharing best practices among nursing groups across the nation. These events brought together multi-stakeholder teams from nearly all 50 states to generate solutions to the nursing shortage and were held by the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in collaboration with the Division of Nursing in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Major points of emphasis during both summits included:
- Strategic partnerships and alignment of resources
- Increased faculty capacity and diversity
- Education redesign
- Policy and regulation

The strategies discussed aim to address systemic problems in nursing education and the shortage of nurses overall. Last month, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that for the ninth straight year, enrollment in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs increased by 3.5 percent in 2009. Despite this trend, almost 40,000 students were turned away from these programs due to insufficient resources and faculty shortages.

The second article in the American Journal of Nursing series will describe ongoing technical assistance (TA) to 30 states from the Center to Champion Nursing in America. The TA program is designed to strengthen state efforts in expanding our nation’s capacity to produce greater numbers of registered nurses and is driven by the recognition that state-level solutions are absolutely critical to addressing the bottleneck in nursing education. The remaining five articles in the series will focus primarily on state teams that have successfully begun to tackle education capacity through innovative approaches that can be replicated to even greater effect. California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi and Oregon have been advocating for policy changes and fostering multi-stakeholder partnerships that tangibly increase nursing school
enrollment and bring more nurses into the workforce.

For instance:

• The Oregon Consortium for Nursing Education (OCNE) has launched a groundbreaking program to increase the number of baccalaureate-prepared nurses. Through unprecedented collaborations in Oregon, nursing faculty from associate degree and baccalaureate nursing programs have agreed to new nursing competencies, a shared curriculum, and academic standards, already resulting in a significant increase in the number of nurses pursuing bachelor’s degrees.
• Team Massachusetts successfully petitioned the Massachusetts legislature, in a tight budget year, to allocate $2 million to the Department of Higher Education for nursing initiatives, including a statewide curriculum for nursing education. The money is being used to leverage private funding matches.
• Team California is implementing a Web-based program, called the Centralized Clinical Placement System (CCPS), to increase clinical placements. This online tool is intended to streamline the placement of nursing students into clinical rotations at local hospitals and medical facilities and expose untapped openings, ultimately allowing nursing programs to enroll more nursing students. The team has also established a clinical adjunct faculty program that prepares masters and baccalaureate-prepared nurses to become effective clinical faculty members.

"Americans are taking the growing nursing shortage very seriously," said Susan Reinhard, Senior Vice President of the AARP Public Policy Institute and Chief
Strategist for the Center to Champion Nursing in America. "In states across the country, we are beginning to see movement in the right direction to expand capacity. Getting out the word about what’s working with articles like these is critical to building a highly-skilled 21st century nursing workforce.”

According to a post-election survey commissioned by the Center to Champion Nursing in America, nearly nine out of 10 Americans 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 90 percent agree that making sure there are enough nurses to monitor patient conditions, coordinate care and educate patients should be a part of the effort to improve the quality of health care. Americans say nurses play an important role in reducing health care costs in the areas of patient safety, preventing medical errors, care coordination and providing primary and preventive care.

“Creative initiatives in some states have been successful in revamping nursing education to meet the growing need for nurses,” said Shawn Kennedy, Editorial Director and Interim Editor in Chief for the American Journal of Nursing. “We need to disseminate that information so it’s clear what programs are countering the nursing shortage and how they might be replicated or adapted in other areas.”

“We know that nurses are critical to a well-functioning health care system,” said RWJF Senior Nursing Advisor Susan Hassmiller. “We hope that by shining a light on what’s working now to deal with the nursing shortage, we can replicate those approaches and help our nation better prepare to meet the needs of patients for generations to come.”

The Center to Champion Nursing in America is an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A consumer-driven, national force for change, the Center seeks to ensure that this country has the nurses it needs to care for all of us, now and in the future. The Center focuses on two main priorities: the nation’s capacity to educate and to retain nurses. For more information, visit www.championnursing.org.

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole. AARP does not endorse candidates for public office or make contributions to either political campaigns or candidates. We produce AARP The Magazine, the definitive voice for 50+ Americans and the world's largest-circulation magazine with over 34.5 million readers; AARP Bulletin, the go-to news source for AARP's 40 million members and Americans 50+; AARP Segunda Juventud, the only bilingual U.S. publication dedicated exclusively to the 50+ Hispanic community; and our website, AARP.org. AARP Foundation is an affiliated charity that provides security, protection, and empowerment to older persons in need with support from thousands of volunteers, donors, and sponsors. We have staffed offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health-care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years the foundation has brought experience, commitment and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit http://www.rwjf.org.

The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) is the leading voice of nursing and the most established nursing journal in the world, since 1900 (www.AJNonline.com). AJN's mission is to promote excellence in nursing and health care through the dissemination of evidence-based, peer-reviewed clinical information and original research, discussion of relevant and controversial professional issues, adherence to the standards of journalistic integrity and excellence, and promotion of nursing perspectives to the health care community and the public. It has received numerous awards for editorial excellence and dissemination of information. It is published by Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins (www.LWW.com).

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