By Debra Wood, RN, contributor
The Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched an initiative to identify and find innovative solutions to issues facing the nursing profession as the country looks to reform the health care system.
Sue Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, hopes the committee’s recommendations generate new thinking about how the health care system can better utilize nurses.
“Our aim is to do everything we can to improve the health and health care for all Americans, and nurses are the lynchpin to ensuring quality and safety, especially at the front lines,” says Sue Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior advisor for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and director of the RWJF Initiative on the Future of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
The RWJF is sponsoring the Initiative on the Future of Nursing, which will be conducted by the IOM. The foundation sponsors multiple programs to boost the nursing workforce, from Transforming Care at the Bedside to its Executive Nurse Fellows program. The foundation decided to partner with the IOM (a nonprofit advisory organization within the National Academy of Sciences), Hassmiller said, to bring as much visibility and credibility to the issues facing nursing as possible.
IOM and RWJF formed a multidisciplinary committee, led by Donna E. Shalala, PhD, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and current president of the University of Miami in Florida. The committee will review innovative models of nursing care and education with an eye on finding nursing-based solutions which will help to improve the quality of patient care while controlling costs.
“We have people who represent health-technology, health law, health care administration, and health policy,” Hassmiller said. “There are a lot of angles we need to bring to the subject matter, and we wanted to bring the best people to the table.”
Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN, vice president for nursing, chief nursing officer and director of nursing research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, serves as the committee’s vice-chair.
Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN, encourages nurses to participate in the Initiative on the Future of Nursing.
“It is important we do this work, about trying to assure the availability of a nursing workforce that will be able to meet America’s needs in a reformed health care system,” Burnes Bolton said. “We are looking to come up with ideas that will [lead] to a new set of recommendations for educating the workforce, how we deploy the workforce, what roles they will have, and how we align the work of nursing ― the largest health professional group in the world ― to facilitate the goals of a reformed health care system.”
The committee will hold three national Future of Nursing forums, seeking thoughts and suggestions from nurses and other stakeholders. The first will take place October 19, 2009, in Los Angeles, which will focus on acute care. On December 3, a forum in Philadelphia will concentrate on community and primary care and public health. The theme for the third forum, in Houston on February 22, 2010, is nursing education. The committee is considering Webcasting the events, so nurses off-site can participate in real time.
“It’s important for nursing organizations and nurses to keep abreast of what we are trying to do, to come to or link into the national forums, so they can feel included in the process,” Hassmiller said.
Nurses can sign up for a listserv to stay abreast of new developments related to the committee’s activities. Nurses also can send questions, suggestions or comments to nursing@nas.edu.
The committee aims to publish its findings and recommendations in fall 2010.
“We are positioning ourselves to be bold in our recommendations about educating and utilizing the nursing workforce to help us achieve a healthier America,” Burnes Bolton said.
Hassmiller hopes the recommendations that come out of the confidential committee deliberations will generate new thoughts about policy and health care redesign, and better utilize nurses.
“The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will be looking for ways to engage and work with [nursing organizations and other] groups as the book of recommendations come out, so we can help to ensure appropriate implementation,” Hassmiller said. “That’s critical. A lot of commissions meet, and that’s the end of it. We don’t want that to be the end of it.”
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