Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (MNSON) supports the recommendations recently issued by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine to advance the nursing profession in the United States.
"The nursing profession will use these recommendations to overcome barriers and adapt to the increasingly complex needs of health care," said Vicki A. Keough, PhD, RN-BC, ACNP, dean, MNSON. "Loyola plans to collaborate with all parties to support this effort and transform nursing in this rapidly changing health-care system."
In 2008, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine launched a two-year initiative to assess and enhance the nursing profession. These efforts resulted in the recommendations titled, "The Future of Nursing; Leading Change, Advancing Health," which propose that:
Nurses should practice to the full extent of their education.
More than a quarter million individuals are advanced practice nurses who have a master's or doctoral degree and national certifications. These recommendations encourage nurses to use this education to meet the growing demands of patient care. They also provide guidance to help new nurses make the transition from school to practice by further developing their skills and preventing turnover.
Nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression.
Nurses must maintain competencies that support the increasingly complicated nature of patient cases. This requires seamless transition into higher degrees in nursing with collaborative education across disciplines.
Loyola had the foresight to meet these needs by offering top-rated programs at all levels. The school also plans to build a Center for Collaborative Learning where physicians and nurses will be educated together. Collaborative patient-centered education and care has the potential to address serious issues based on the notion that nurses and physicians educated together learn to work more effectively side by side to achieve better outcomes for patients.
Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health-care professionals, in redesigning health care in the United States.
Nurses must be accountable for their own contributions to delivering high-quality care while working as equals with leaders from other health professions. Loyola uses a multidisciplinary approach to educate students and prepare them for this leadership role in patient-centered team settings.
Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and an improved information infrastructure.
The 2010 Affordable Care Act mandates the creation of both a National Health Care Workforce Commission to help gauge the demand for health-care workers and a National Center for Workforce Analysis to support workforce data collection and analysis. Loyola supports these initiatives to enhance data collection and information technology to allow the health-care system to better plan for nursing needs.
Using simulations in nursing education to optimize learning outcomes