• Examine the Initiative on the Future of Nursing report (Robert Wood Johnson, 2011).

Four key messages:

• Nurses should practice to the full extent of their education and training.
• Nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression.
• Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health professionals, in redesigning health care in the United States.
• Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and an improved information infrastructure.

Eight recommendations:

• Recommendation 1: Remove scope-of-practice barriers.
• Recommendation 2: Expand opportunities for nurses to lead and diffuse collaborative improvement efforts.
• Recommendation 3: Implement nurse residency programs.
• Recommendation 4: Increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80 percent by 2020.
• Recommendation 5: Double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020.
• Recommendation 6: Ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning.
• Recommendation 7: Prepare and enable nurses to lead change to advance health.
• Recommendation 8: Build an infrastructure for the collection and analysis of interprofessional health care workforce data.

• Based on the readings from the report, post your responses to the following.
  • Has your practice environment addressed any recommendation(s) presented in IOM’s Future of Nursing Report?
    • My Practice environment is Med/surg unit If yes:
      • identify one recommendation that was addressed;
      • discuss why it was addressed;
      • discuss what action was taken to address it; and
      • describe the outcome.
    • Institute of Medicine. (2010). The future of nursing: Focus on education. Retrieved from http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing/Nursing%20Education%202010%20Brief.pdf
    • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2011). IOM recommendations. Retrieved from https://campaignforaction.org/resource/future-nursing-iom-report/