The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has given the AARP a $10-million grant to create a center for addressing the looming shortage of nurses.
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Download NowThe newly created Center to Champion Nursing in America will work to elevate the visibility of the nursing shortage while identifying ways to improve the quality of patient care. Specifically, the Center to Champion Nursing will address the nursing shortage by pressing for:
- Greater state and federal funding to support expanded nursing education, particularly addressing severe faculty shortages at nurse training institutions across the country.
- Places for nurse leaders on the governing boards of hospitals and other health care organizations to provide critically needed perspective on improving quality and safety of care.
- An educational movement based on new research to inform the public and policy-makers about nurse workforce issues and the link between a trained and adequate nursing workforce and high quality health care.
A RWJF funded study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that concern about the availability of nurses is one of the top three reasons people think hospital care is poor in America --with two-thirds of those surveyed blaming poor quality on overworked, stressed or fatigued nurses. Additional studies show that higher, more adequate levels of hospital nurse staffing result in fewer patients with pneumonia, fewer pressure ulcers, and fewer heart attacks, as well as lower risk of surgical patients dying within their first 30 days in the hospital.
Nursing is the largest health profession, with nearly 3 million registered nurses in the United States . However, decline in federal support, state interest and local capacity has left the nation without an adequate supply of nurses to fill a growing number of vacancies, according to the RWJF.
"It's pretty simple math. Without enough skilled nurses, patients are going suffer," says RWJF President and CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey,. "Nurses are the link to the patient and they are the front-line defense against medical errors. If we are going to improve the quality of hospital care and nursing care at the bedside, we need to find ways to fill the pipeline. We believe this Center will help us reach that goal."