Nursing Jobs

Certification Signals Expertise

Posted in Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties

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Is specialty nursing certification necessary? What are the benefits? Must an RN be certified to compete for jobs?

These are some of the questions addressed in this article on Nurse.com. There is no question that specialty nursing certification has become increasingly popular. The American Nurses Credentialing Center reports that more than 250,000 nurses and more than 80,000 advanced practice nurses have received certification from them since 1990.

While specialty nursing certification is voluntary, studies have indicated that it has potential benefits that include increased job satisfaction. The article quotes a nurse as saying that after she received certification, “Physicians seemed more respectful of my opinions.”

It is not yet clear whether certified nurses earn more. One study found that registered nurses who hold certification in a specialty area earn $7,300 more a year, on average, than uncertified RNs. But then another recent study found that there wasn’t a high correlation between salary and certification.

One nurse manager interviewed for the article said, “Certification is definitely a plus when I am reviewing nursing applications for my unit and the candidates are otherwise equal.” She said that almost half of the nurses on her unit have certification in critical care or progressive care nursing. She says that certification also seems to make families feel more confident about a nurse’s ability to care for their loved one.

Indeed, certification may lead to improved patient outcomes. A study in the June 2011 issue of the Journal of Nursing Scholarship shows a link between nursing specialty certification and better clinical outcomes, including lower inpatient mortality. Other studies have found that certification is associated with fewer medical errors, according to ANCC.

“Certification indicates your commitment to patient care. It’s something nurses are very proud of,” ANCC’s Swartwout said.

An ongoing study should shed more light on whether certification affects clinical outcomes. The American Board of Nursing Specialties is sponsoring a study of trends in specialty certification of RNs in acute care hospitals and the connection between certification and specific patient outcomes. According to the ABNS, the research project uses the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators.

How to search for a certification program

Nurse experts recommend the following steps in beginning the journey toward certification:

• Ask advice from a board-certified colleague or supervisor.
• Search your specialty nursing organization’s website. It may have a certification link.
• Search among the member organizations of credentialing bodies. Those for nursing certifications include the American Board of Nursing Specialties and the Institute for Credentialing Excellence.
• Search certification review materials. At PearlsReview, a subscription-based collection of nursing specialty certification reviews from Gannett Education (PearlsReview.com/courses.aspx), each specialty review page contains links to the certifying organizations for that specialty’s exams.

What’s standing in the way

Despite the benefits, most U.S. nurses are not certified. Among the barriers to pursuing nursing certification is the cost of the exams, an ABNS survey found in 2006. Initial certification exams in 2011 typically cost several hundred dollars or more, although discounts are available for members of the board’s affiliated nursing organizations, such as the American Nurses Association for ANCC exams.

Nurses also must meet eligibility requirements, which vary by certification. Generally, licensed RNs must have a certain amount of nursing experience and clinical and continuing education hours to be eligible for ANCC specialty nursing certification. For instance, ANCC criteria for certification in med/surg nursing requires candidates to have worked two years as full-time RNs and have 2,000 clinical hours and 30 continuing education hours in the field in the past three years. Other organizations may have no continuing education requirement. Eligibility criteria to sit for the CCRN certification exam from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses Certification Corp. include 1,750 hours in bedside care of acutely or critically ill patients during the prior two years, with no requirement for continuing education. Advanced practice certifications have educational requirements as well.

Study guides

For some nurses, the concern is how to find the time and discipline to study for the exam while juggling work and family responsibilities. Nurses can make their study goals more attainable by studying over a longer period, Saxton recommended. The ANCC suggests about six months of study before taking the certification exam.

However, ONCB’s Lasley said how long to study is an individual matter and that some orthopedic nurses have found six weeks is enough time to prepare for the ONC exam.

Saxton suggested a peer study group to prepare for a board exam. “Having a support system helps nurses achieve their goal. It gives them accountability,” she said.

Finding a mentor also is recommended. Some certifying programs and specialty nursing associations have volunteers who help peers through the certification process, such as the ONCB’s certification mentors called Ambassadors.

Review seminars are available at hospitals and nursing schools across the country as well as online sites including NurseCredentialing.org for some ANCC specialty certification exams. The credentialing center gives applicants a 90-day window to take the exam after deeming them eligible.

ANCC nursing certifications are valid for five years before requiring renewal. Swartwout said most nurses renew their certification through professional development rather than testing.

Tips for Travel Nurses on Going Green

Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties, Travel Nursing

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Travel nursing can be exciting, challenging, and rewarding, but it can also be a little rough on the environment. The San Francisco Chronicle’s website has a list of tips for reducing your carbon footprint.

These suggestions are geared towards travel nurses, travel therapists, and other mobile healthcare professionals who wish to be more green while on assignment.

On average, American commuters traveled 25-minutes to and from work each day in 2009 or 50 minutes per day, according to the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census. Densely populated areas may have trouble meeting federally recommended air quality standards due to the pollution vehicles create. Altering daily habits will aid in reducing carbon emissions in these areas as well as in other communities across the U.S., where Aureus Medical’s healthcare employees are assigned.

1. Purchase a fuel-efficient vehicle. The rising cost of gas makes buying a fuel-efficient car sensible for a commute and a sound future investment. Many newer used cars can offer exceptional mileage options that range from 24 to over 35 miles per gallon, which can greatly reduce the amount of fuel required and the emissions the vehicle produces.

2. Maintain the car by ensuring the correct air pressure in tires. Proper inflation alone can drastically improve gas mileage, which will save money over the course of the year and decrease pollution.

3. Consider public transportation, such as buses, subways and commuter trains. This helps make the footprint of the overall system greener due to the decrease in pollution per capita.

4. Bike to work. Not only will it save gas, but will also reduce car maintenance costs, parking fees and toll expenses. According to Time Magazine, an individual may be able to save $5,000 annually by biking to work.

5. Walk to work. Depending on the location of temporary housing and the hospital facility, a mobile, a travel nurse or travel therapist may be able to walk all or part of the way, and incorporate public transportation that follows the route required.

Baby Boomers a Driving Force Behind Demand for Nurses

Posted in Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Shortage

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In its biannual Employment Outlook report, the U.S. Department of Labor stated that the healthcare and social assistance fields would experience the highest growth for new jobs, with more than 5 million new workers needed by 2020. An estimated 33.8 million existing healthcare positions are expected to be vacated by retiring workers, which raises the number of available healthcare jobs in the next decade to 54 million.

For new nursing students and high school students hoping to enter the nursing profession, the news from the Labor Department is encouraging, especially in light of the recent recession and high unemployment numbers.

The projected growth in healthcare is also good news for older workers who can expect a need for experienced and loyal employees, who are valuable to their employers for their stability and wisdom as examples and mentors to new employees.

Also benefiting from the new jobs will be Hispanics, with an expected rise of 18.6 percent in employment; a more than 4 percent increase in their current employment numbers. Asians and African-Americans will see a slight increase of 1 percent in new healthcare positions. Overall, there looks to be more racial and ethnic diversity in the healthcare workforce.

Across all fields, the report also projected a growth rate of over 21.7 percent in jobs needing master’s degrees. With the bachelor’s degree in nursing becoming the standard in many facilities and states, those nurses considering master’s programs will find a steady rise in newly created roles as new areas of responsibility for leading patient-care teams emerges.

Specific to nursing students attaining their registered nurse license, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 26 percent growth in jobs, or 711,900 new positions. The median wage for a registered nurse in 2010 was $64,690; with the high end being $95,130 and the low end, $44,190. Nurses employed in California or by pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturers earned the highest salaries.

As the new models of healthcare take shape and patient-centered care teams are built, emphasis will shift to community-based nursing with nurses needing more technical skills in outpatient settings and long-term care facilities. Home-based nursing needs will continue to rise as more people choose to stay in their homes and healthcare evolves with advances in medicine and technology, including telemedicine. Nurses who garner higher scores in patient care satisfaction surveys will also find themselves regarded as valued members of the care team, ensuring job security.

Nursing Shortage Over, For Now

Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing School, Nursing Shortage

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A study indicates that the nursing shortage is over, but that it will likely come roaring back. By 2020, it might be more difficult than ever to fill nursing vacancies.

This article in the Detroit News indicates that the the number of full-time nurses grew by about 386,000 from 2005 to 2010, according to a recent study. And that was during a time of relatively high unemployment overall. This increase in the nursing workforce was the largest of any five-year period in the last forty years.

The study author, Douglas Staiger, says, “Probably for the first time in memory there were actually reports of nurses having difficulty finding jobs and reports from hospitals of almost a glut of nurses.”

Starting in about 1998, nurses were leaving the profession faster than they were entering it, causing a nursing shortage. Nurses complained of being overworked, underpaid, and unable to provide good patient care. In an attempt to stem the tide and attract more people to nursing, hospitals offered more benefits and perks like signing bonuses, scholarships and tuition reimbursement.

Those efforts paid off as the number of people who graduated from entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs more than doubled to 161,540 in 2010 from 72,986 in 2000, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing based in Washington.

The gains continued unabated even as the recession began in 2007 as nurses who had left the work force or were employed part-time returned to full-time work to shore up family finances, said Staiger.

As the economy improves, and the mostly married, female work force quit, reduce their working hours to part time or reach retirement age, a shortage of nurses is expected again. The renewed need for nurses will hit just as demand for health care increases as more Americans gain medical insurance under provisions of the U.S. health-care law that goes into effect in 2014, Staiger said.

“We had suspected that the supply of nurses is counter cyclical, when the economy goes down, nurses work more, pile back into work in part because the jobs are there,” he said. “The concern was this was a temporary surge into the labor market, a bubble, and as soon as the economy recovered, a lot of nurses would exit and we would be back and the shortage would emerge.

”Going ahead into 2020 and beyond, there are concerns that the kind of shortages we’ve had will be larger than what we’ve seen,” Staiger said.

The nursing work force is now expected to add about 109,000 full-time positions from 2010 to 2015, as the economy improves and by 227,000 if the economic downturn persists, the authors said.

The authors used data from a workforce model to compare the U.S. unemployment rate with the difference between the actual size of the nurse workforce and the model’s expected size over 40 years. They were then able to project what effect the recession had on the workforce in 2005 and 2010 and what effects an improving economy would have beyond 2010.

They found that from 2010 and 2015, 118,000 nurses will stop working full time as the economy grows.

“The nursing shortage is likely to re-emerge and nursing is going to continue to be a good occupation choice for young people,” Staiger said.

The current median age of nurses is 46 years, while the largest group is in their 50s, according American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Polly Bednash, chief executive officer of the group, said she’s worried today’s report will lead policy makers to think they don’t need to invest in the nursing field.

“We need to put all the support we can into keeping the pipeline robust,” she said in a March 19 telephone interview.

More Men Becoming Nurses

Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Shortage

The nursing field is still dominated by women, but more and more men are joining their ranks.

The stigma is fading, and the opportunities are beckoning. For students like Trevor Potts, interviewed in this article in the South Dakota State University newspaper, the chance to make people feel better and help others draws him to nursing. “It doesn’t bother me that it’s a field dominated by women,” he says.

The number of nurses who are male has more than doubled since 1980, though the percentages are still small. Then, about 3 percent of all nurses were male; now, about 6.6 percent of them are.

With increasing numbers come increasing acceptance, though sometimes there is still a level of discomfort with having a male nurse as a caregiver:

Potts said during his clinical training for SDSU a female patient asked that he stay out of the delivery room when she was giving birth. Although this happens, Potts said it’s few and far between and most patients are positive about him being a male and a nurse.

“There are always times when someone says, ‘Oh, another male nurse,’ but it’s usually a positive reaction or more of a surprise than a negative reaction,” he said.

By entering a field dominated by the opposite sex, Potts and other male nurses might be perceived as being at a disadvantage, but according to an article by Joan Evans, “Men in nursing: issues of gender segregation and hidden advantage,” from the Journal of Advanced Nursing, this is not the case.

According to Evans, because the United States is a patriarchal culture, men’s greater status awards them “situational dominance” even when they are the minority and even gives them a special privileged minority status.

“I think being a male will actually be more of an advantage,” said Potts. “Places are always wanting to hire male nurses.”

There is another advantage males see working as a nurse: higher pay. In 2008, the BLS reported female RNs earned a median weekly salary of $1,011, while the median weekly earning for male nurses was $1,168. This means that women made only 86.6 percent of what men made as nurses.

This number might have less to do with whether a nurse is a male or female and more to do with rank. According to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, nearly half of their number — 46% — were male during 2008. These positions pay significantly more at about $160,000 to $180,000 per year. Floor nurses, who are mostly women, get paid about $50,000 a year.

Potts will begin as an RN when he enters the workforce, but doesn’t plan to stay there. After two years of critical care training he plans to climb the healthcare ladder and become a CNRA to earn more money, status and respect.

“You definitely see more men in that field. You can make more money, claim a higher status and you just receive more respect from doctors and health professionals overall,” Potts said.

A.C.O.s Offer New Healthcare Option

Posted in Affordable Care Act, Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties

An article in the New York Times explains a new type of health care practice called accountable care organizations, or A.C.O.s

The article takes the case of Fannie Cline as an example of how A.C.O.s work. Mrs. Cline, a 69-year-old retiree, was struggling to manage her Type 2 diabetes, suffering setbacks like dizzy spells that were bad enough that she had to go to the emergency room.

Things changed for her last May when she started to get calls from a registered nurse and care manager at Advocate Health Care named Gwilie Lloyd. Ms. Lloyd checks on Mrs. Cline and does things like provide advice on diet and exercise, schedule appointments, and order meals for delivery.

Since then, Mrs. Cline has been doing much better. She hasn’t needed hospitalization again, and is more active and social, spending her days visiting friends.

“It is nice to have someone call you in between your visits to the doctor’s office to see how you are,” Mrs. Cline said. “If my blood sugar is elevated and I feel off balance, she will ask me what I have been eating lately. She might say, ‘Maybe you need more oatmeal or fruit.’ ”

The extra attention Mrs. Cline receives is the result of a radical departure from traditional fee-for-service medicine.

Advocate runs one of the nation’s first and largest accountable care organizations, a new kind of health care practice gaining momentum in part because of the Affordable Care Act signed into law two years ago by President Obama.

A.C.O.’s, as they are known, are collections of medical providers who band together under one business umbrella. The organization can include primary care doctors, specialists, social workers, pharmacists and nurses. The difference is in how these providers are paid: Instead of an insurance company or the government reimbursing each provider for each service provided to each patient, the A.C.O. is paid simply to care for a group of patients.

If the organization can reduce the cost of caring for the patients while maintaining their health, it gets to keep and divide up some of the savings — a powerful incentive to do things differently, experts hope. But if the A.C.O. cannot meet quality measures and costs rise, the providers in the organization may well receive lower payments.

The A.C.O. may strike some critics as a worrying repackaging of the H.M.O. in its earliest incarnations, but there is little doubt that more Americans will be enrolled in these provider groups in the coming years. “A.C.O.’s are coming, and it will change the way we pay for health care,” said Dr. Michael Cryer, national medical director for the employee benefits consultancy Aon Hewitt. “Providers are doing things in a positive way rather than a reactive way. We are seeing the beginnings of a tsunami.”

For the past year, Advocate has cared for more than 200,000 patients insured by Illinois Blue Cross plans, and so far the A.C.O. has managed to reduce hospital stays and overall costs for patients, according to Steve Hamman, vice president for network management at Illinois Blue Cross. Advocate, like other A.C.O.’s, manages to do this in large part by hiring people like Ms. Lloyd to better coordinate patient care.

Care managers exist outside of A.C.O.’s, but they are particularly important in this new health care setting. Care managers keep patients like Mrs. Cline out of expensive hospitals by reminding them to take their medications, helping them to eat properly, and troubleshooting logistical problems that elderly and sick patients often encounter.

“A care manager may care for up to 150 patients, and the savings from keeping these patients healthy, and potentially out of the hospital, pays for their salary several times over,” said Dr. Lee Sacks, chief medical officer at Advocate. “But it’s more than just the economics. It’s the right thing to do.”

Nurse Practitioners Fight for More Independence

Posted in Affordable Care Act, Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties

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Physicians are resisting legislation that is geared towards allowing advance practice registered nurses (APRNs) like nurse practitioners to practice independently. This has been proposed as a solution to the problem of increasing health care costs.

The main objection stated by physicians has been that while they understand that NPs have an important role, NPs simply don’t have enough medical training to practice and prescribe medication independently of a supervising physician.

In this article on the Healthcare Finance News site, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Glen Stream, states that family physicians complete between 7 and 20 times more clinical training than nurse practitioners, and that substituting NPs for physicians is a “disservice to patients.”

Nurse practitioners will be the first ones to say that they are not doctors nor are they doctor replacements, however, they say, they offer high-quality care and high patient satisfaction at lower costs.

“NPs are nurses first and foremost,” said Deonne Benedict, a nurse practitioner who owns Charis Family Clinic in Edmonds, Wash., one of a handful of states that allow NPs to practice and prescribe independently.

“Physicians seem to be making the same arguments they made historically against osteopaths, optometrists, chiropractors and others,” said Benedict. “The fact is that we have a strong body of evidence with hundreds of studies showing that NPs provide excellent care, with high patient satisfaction and quality care outcomes.

We are educated differently, from a nursing perspective, but we are highly educated.” And like their physician colleagues, Benedict noted, NPs know when it’s appropriate to refer.

“What are the issues around allowing APNs to practice independently?” said Janet Selway, DNSc, ANP-BC, director of the adult gerontology nurse practitioner program and assistant professor at the Catholic University of America’s nursing school. “Two words: fear and misunderstanding.

“Some of our colleagues in medicine fear that NPs are trying to be physician replacements. Rather, we highly value our nursing background and believe that our unique nursing perspective benefits the patient.

Both disciplines should focus on the patient and avoid getting bogged down in fighting over an outdated captain of the ship view.”

While the medical training argument won out in Texas last year, physician groups like the AAFP may find themselves fighting an uphill battle that ultimately comes down to money. As state governments continue to feel the pressure to rein in healthcare costs, the argument that NPs can offer high quality care at lower costs is bound to get attention.

Also adding weight to the arguments of NPs is a report issued in the fall of 2010 by the widely-regarded Institute of Medicine. In “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health” the IOM recommends eliminating scope of practice barriers and the expansion of the Medicare program to include coverage of advanced practice nursing services.

A Nurse Ethicist Explains Her Specialty

Posted in Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing Specialties

There are so many challenging decisions in nursing, and not all of the ethical issues are clear-cut. A nurse ethicist can be a resource in those difficult situations.

Nurse.com has an interview with a nurse ethicist who explains this little-known specialty. Lucia D. Wocial, RN, PhD, is a nurse ethicist with Indiana University Health, plus the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics, and then also an adjunct assistant professor at the Indiana University School of Nursing in Indianapolis, Indiana.

What exactly does a nurse ethicist do?

To start, this is not a black-and-white sort of job, where I come to work every day and know I will do XYZ. I present inservices related to ethics for nurses coming into IU Health. I talk about case examples and help them apply the abstract concept of ethics in their roles. With IU Health’s unit-based ethics program, I facilitate informal conversations regarding ethical issues. I help people learn to talk about and consider patient care issues in the context of ethics principals. I also serve on committees and do consultations.

But my role may differ from other nurse ethicists. When I went to graduate school, I wrote a job description for my ideal job as a nurse in ethics, and this is it. I spend about 40% of my time at the Fairbanks Center, 40% with the department of nursing at IU Health and 20% at the IU School of Nursing.

Do nurse ethicists review patient cases?

Yes. The most frequent reason for assistance on a patient care issue is concern about a patient’s or family’s request for nonbeneficial or futile treatment, trying to keep their loved one alive when the medical team does not think it is possible long-term or it is causing harm. That most commonly occurs in critical care or oncology.

Ethics is about more than death and dying, although issues surrounding end of life are the most ethically challenging. Because we are trained to help, it’s hard to cope with these issues. Sometimes, the patient will request a withdrawal of curative treatment before the healthcare team is ready for that.

Whatever the case, I will read the chart and talk with all of the stakeholders — the patient, the family, the nurses and physicians. I might mediate a discussion between patients and families and the healthcare team. I try to identify the language to use to help gain an understanding of each other’s perspectives. I will follow up informally with nurses involved with the care to help them with the ethical language and justify the approach taken. I help people think about the case beyond the emotional aspects and in the broader context.

What are your greatest contributions to the healthcare arena?

The greatest value I bring is as a resource on ethics when someone is grappling with the right thing to do. I can help them “unpack” their issues and separate them in a way that makes sense. Usually it’s an emotionally charged situation. Sometimes people need to set aside their emotions and think it through.

The benefit I provide is an ability to look at it through the lens of a nurse in clinical practice for more than 20 years. I know what it means to be a nurse taking care of patients. When I look at things with an ethicist’s eye, it is always through the lens of a nurse.

Registered Nurse is Best Job of 2012

Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News

The US News and World Report has published a list of the top ten jobs of 2012. At the very top of the list — above jobs such as web developer and pharmacist — is “Registered Nurse.”

All ten of the best jobs of 2012 fall one of two broad categories, either healthcare or computers.

Each year, U.S. News compiles a list of the Best Careers based on the Labor Department’s employment projections. And this year, we continue to base our picks for the Best Jobs of 2012 on professions that should hire abundantly over the next several years. To better help you make a smart career choice, we’ve also started ranking our selections.

Jobs from quick-to-hire industries made our list: business, creative services, healthcare, science & technology, and social services. John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas predicts many of these sectors will overlap, with one industry standing the tallest. “Healthcare has become the core industry in this country, just like manufacturing in another era,” he says. “It’s a confluence of forces causing this, including the science involved in uncovering new frontiers, the aging of the population, and government’s commitment to providing healthcare to a broader generation of people. That causes job growth in several sectors.”

They count down from the 10th-best job (Occupational Therapist) to the best:

1. Registered Nurse

Salary Range: $44,190-$95,130

One of the first things you should determine when entering this field is what type of nursing you’d like to do. According to Michael Wolf, an economist with the BLS, one of the reasons this profession will gain nearly 712,000 positions this decade is because it’s such an expansive profession, period. “Actually its growth rate is good, but not out of line with some other occupations,” he says. “Registered nurses should grow by about 26 percent. The healthcare practitioner occupations as a whole have a growth rate of about 26 percent, though.” The bench might be deep, but the playing field is still competitive. For a better chance at landing a nursing job, you’ll want to determine your niche early, consider using virtual networking tools, and look for employment outside a hospital setting.

New Nursing Education Recommendations

Posted in Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing School, Nursing Shortage

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The face of the nursing profession is changing as as healthcare morphs into a new paradigm of care for the twenty-first century. The number of nursing positions in hospitals has declined and there has been a shift to more community-based positions that define new models of nursing care. In order to prepare new nurses for what will eventually be the majority of available positions, nursing education will need to change.

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation developed a joint initiative known as the Future of Nursing (FON). Of the three national forums FON held, one focused entirely on nursing education. Attendees considered nursing education reforms in nursing curricula, teaching methods, and the best venues for learning.

Participants formulated recommendations that reflect the new realities of delivering effective nursing care based on the following concepts:

- Nursing care is becoming more outpatient- and community-centered, and fewer nurses are employed in acute care settings.

- Evidence-based nursing practice guidelines, which evolve rapidly, are not integrated effectively into actual nursing practice and nursing education.

- Nurse leaders and team-led nursing care are growing needs.

- Simply increasing the number of nurses will not meet the growing demand for their services.

Michael Bleich, RN, Ph.D, Dean of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing explained that the FON participants did not believe the current system of nursing education inadequately prepared new nurses. He did indicate that patients’ needs are more complex these days, especially in the aging populace, and that more than simply ensuring that a patient lives, nurses need to focus on helping a patient maintain or improve his or her quality of life.

Nursing practice needs to shift from a diagnosis-focused approach to one that meets the needs of a population with complex medical issues. Nurses need to pull from a host of interventions that patients can perform themselves in order to protect their health and be able to live with their medical issues.

To add to myriad of nursing duties already required, the entire healthcare system also looks to nurses to maintain and contribute to the safety requirements of the facilities. The latter is focused more on being an effective healthcare team member using skills not taught in nursing education, such as those better performed by facilities management.

The FON forum identified another challenge facing nursing education — encouraging diversity among nursing students. Better recruiting techniques that appeal to racially-ethnic groups and the male population must be deployed in order to provide culturally-effective care. This has been an ongoing issue in nursing for the past two decades.