The Institute of Medicine S Report on Nursing

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Committee Initiative on the Future of Nursing and the Institute of Medicine

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has published a guide for the future of nursing in the U.S., the purpose of which is to facilitate nurses, health care providers and community leaders with the tools they need to implement effective changes towards improving the health of their communities. This paper will discuss the key messages of the IOM report, the importance of the report for nursing, and what the state is doing in terms of its Action Coalition to achieve the goals outlined by the report.

The key messages of the IOM report, Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health are that nurses should 1) maximize their education and training in their practice by working to implement everything they have learned, 2) pursue further education/training through a program of continuing education that supports progress, and 3) partner with doctors and health care providers to help reformulate the way that health care is delivered. The final message of the report is that 4) in order to effectively and efficiently create and implement a superior nursing policy, better information and data gathering techniques need to be adopted (Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine, 2011).

The importance of the IOM report for nursing practice, nursing education and nursing workforce development is situated in its focus on collaboration, consistency, and continuing education. For the practice of nursing, the IOM report highlights the need for nurses to utilize their utmost potential, which is prepared for them in education and realized in practice. Nurses are given the tools they need to provide high quality care to patients and they should draw on these tools to ensure that superior care is delivered. At the same time, they should not plateau but should continue to advance their education, knowledge and skill set, as the industry is constantly upgrading and developing new techniques. For instance, the advancement of eHealth services and telemedicine is a new development that nurses can utilize to increase quality care -- but it requires a dedication to continued education on their part (Yesenofski, Kromer, Hitchings, 2015). In terms nursing education, continued education is imperative as it allows nurses to stay at the forefront of developments in the industry, to be aware of change, and to be able to implement new strategies and stay ready for growth; this is the essence of life-long learning in nursing (Davis, Taylor, Reyes, 2014). Both of these points feed into the concept of nursing workforce development, as practice and education combine to transform the workplace environment through dedication to upgraded service, strategic implementation of technological developments, and gradual and persistent overhaul of the organization for the betterment of provisional care (Kissack, Callahan, 2010).

The role of state-based action coalitions and how they advance the goals of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action is two-fold: first, the role of the coalitions is to execute the action plan of the Campaign at a local level by supporting health and nursing advocates in their desire to create a healthier community overall; second, they advance the goals of the Campaign by fostering a collaborative spirit among business leaders, educators, health care providers and legislators in order to effect that same end goal. In Texas, the action coalition has over 500 member organizations, with hundreds of nurses and community leaders working together to bring the IOM's goals to life.

In terms of interpersonal collaboration, the Texas Team has partnered with Texas Healthcare Trustees to create Nurses on Board -- an initiative designed to equip 400 nurses on policy boards and hospital boards with the training they need to implement the Campaign's objectives. Thus, Texas is progressing in terms of interpersonal collaboration by fostering this collaborative spirit among the members of the health care community's boards and committees (Texas Action Coalition, 2015).

Two initiatives thus spearheaded by Texas state's Action Coaltion are the Nurses on Board initiative and the launching of new DNP programs to increase the number of doctorates awarded nurses, so as to reach the Campaign's objective of ensuring that nurses continue their education and take training to new heights (Texas Action Coalition, 2015). This education initiative has allowed nurses to pave new ground through new programs that help them to stay ahead of the development curve by being up-to-date on the latest advancements in the industry. The Nurses on Board initiative is likewise focused on advancement and is exemplified by the nurse leaders all across the state joining in activities for training so as to obtain "positions on boards of directors of hospital, community and statewide governing bodies that address health care issues" (Hayes, 2014). The purpose of Nurses on Board is to ensure that the governing bodies of all health care related entities are trained and informed of the Campaign's objectives and are ready and capable to pursue objectives and implement strategies that will promote these objectives.

These initiatives advance the nursing profession in two ways: first, they encourage and allow nurses to further their education by promoting the concept of offering more programs for nurses seeking higher education; second, they foster a spirit of collaboration and unity by providing training for nurses interested in being directors of boards that make important decisions about health care environments, strategies, organizational cultures, and developments.

Barriers to advancement that currently exist in Texas are related to political and economic obstacles that often get in the way of advancement and unity; for instance, individuals in Texas sometimes put personal priorities ahead of institutional and/or organizational aims, forgetting that what is most important for the success of the Campaign is the adherence of the whole community to a unified vision and clear goal that all can strive towards. When political and economic factions begin polarizing campaigns of their own that divide community members and cause bitterness and dislike to rise up, the objective of the Campaign becomes less clear.