Happy International Nurses Day! Yesterday, the National Academy of Medicine released the long-anticipated report, The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity.
This comprehensive report explores "how nurses can work over the next decade to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care."
Two highlights the committee consider while conducting the study for this report included:
The role of nurses in improving the health of individuals, families, and communities by addressing social determinants of health and providing effective, efficient, equitable, and accessible care for all across the care continuum, as well as identifying the system facilitators and barriers to achieving this goal.
System facilitators and barriers to achieving a workforce that is diverse, including gender, race, and ethnicity, across all levels of nursing education.
You can read a free PDF of the full report or a list of highlights.
One issue cited in the report was a continued shortage of educators:
There is also a significant shortage of faculty, which played a role in nursing programs turning away more than 80,000 otherwise qualified applicants in the 2019- 2020 enrollment cycle.
To advance health equity for all, nursing schools need to expand their capacity to educate, mentor, and support more aspiring nurses from a range of backgrounds.
LeadNursingForward.org is committed to helping address the faculty shortage in Maryland and to creating a more diverse nursing and nurse educator workforce.