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What is the Center for Nursing?
● What is the purpose of the Center for Nursing?
●
Why is the Center for Nursing so important?
● What are the current research projects of the
Center for Nursing? ●
What are the goals
of the Center for Nursing?
What is the Center for Nursing?
Alabama’s Center for Nursing developed as a result
of the current nursing shortage. By the 1990s, the shortage had become an issue
for the State’s nursing leaders. As the critical nature of the nursing
workforce intensified, the Alabama Board of Nursing committed itself to
providing leadership and facilitation in addressing the shortage. The
Alabama State Nurses’ Association Commission on Professional Issues met in
March 2003. The Commission recommended that the Board of Nursing develop and
implement a Center for Nursing within the existing ABN organization.
Because of the Center’s valuable
connection to Alabama’s Board of Nursing, the need for constant fundraising is
eliminated, although sustaining the Center through grant writing is an important
function of the Center’s Director, Dr. Allison Terry.
The
first state-level nursing workforce entity was created by statute in
North Carolina in 1991. The
Robert Wood Johnson Colleagues in Caring: Collaboratives for Nursing
Workforce Development (1996-2002) created funding and direction
for expanding state and regional entities for nurse workforce
planning and development. Today, there are over 30 such
initiatives.
What is the purpose of
the Center for Nursing?
Alabama’s Center for Nursing has as its
purpose the collection, analysis, and dissemination of nursing
workforce data.
Why is the
Center for Nursing so important?
The pressing need for Alabama to have
a Center for Nursing became evident when national demographics began
to show that most working RNs in the United States today are in
their 40s and 50s and will begin retiring in large number after the
year 2010.
Meanwhile, many of America’s 80
million baby boomers will reach age 65 during the next decade. As
the baby boomers age and current working nurses retire, there is
predicted to be a gap between the supply and demand for RNs which
will likely expand to between 400,000 and 800,000 vacant positions
by the year 2020.
The need for Licensed Practical
Nurses will also be expected to increase tremendously.
A nursing shortage of this magnitude
would result in crippling of the nation’s health care system due to:
- Disruptions in care delivery processes
- Decreased access to care
- Deterioration in quality of patient care
- Deterioration in safety of patient care
What
are the current research projects of the Center for Nursing?
The Center conducts a bi-annual survey
of Alabama RNs and LPNs in conjunction with license renewal.
Compilation and analysis of the data collected through these surveys
provides a portrait of the State’s nursing workforce and includes
information such as demographics, level of education, workplace
environment and issues related to the nursing shortage. Information
is also gathered on an annual basis on school nurses employed in
public school settings as well as on nursing faculty. A grant has
been received from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing
to perform research on Advanced Practice Nurses. These practitioners
include Certified Registered Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse
Midwives, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, and Clinical
Nurse Specialists. The results of each research project are posted
on the Center for Nursing website after data are compiled and
analyzed and a report of findings is generated.
What are the goals of the
Center for Nursing?
The goals of the Center include:
- Accurately forecast nursing workforce
supply and demand for the state of Alabama so that long-range planning is
possible using available resources.
- Encourage the input of the State’s
nurses through survey completion. This allows the Center to receive accurate
information regarding the diversity of the State’s nursing population as well as
the overall level of educational preparation of most nurses. This data may then
be compared to the national statistics.
- Collaborate with state and
stakeholders so that policy initiatives can be developed and
disseminated. Collaboration on a State level occurs in part through
meeting with the Advisory Council. The members of the Council are
stakeholders in nursing workforce issues who, through their varied
backgrounds and levels of expertise, are equipped to provide
guidance to the Director of the Center.
- Collaborate nationally through
membership in the Forum of State Centers for Nursing, an
organization of state nursing workforce entities that have coalesced
to support the advancement of new as well as existing state level
nursing workforce initiatives and to share best practices in nursing
workforce research, workforce planning, workforce development, and
formulation of workforce policy.
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