This new report from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) addresses how baccalaureate and higher degree schools of nursing can magnify the ways they are improving healthcare at the local, state, and national levels. Included in the report is a strategic framework to engage nursing and medical school deans, health system executives, and university presidents and chancellors to work collaboratively toward clinical innovation, aligning critical resources, and improving the public’s health.
The AACN feels that academic nursing is ready to start taking big steps. Academic nurses can and should have a part in improving the healthcare system’s delivery, education, and research, especially in the face of a major nationwide healthcare shortage. The AACN aims to take part in helping nurses realize their potential for transforming the face of healthcare, nursing care, and academic nursing.
AACN members have been discussing the evolving role of nursing schools since 2013, and in 2015 they commissioned a national study on optimizing nursing’s role in academic health centers. The US is in a state of healthcare reform while simultaneously facing a nursing shortage, making it necessary for nursing schools, both at the bachelor and higher degree levels, to move toward long-term sustainability.
To determine how academic nursing could contribute to the healthcare system, the AACN issued two surveys with results showing that nursing schools affiliated with academic health centers were not well positioned for healthcare transformation. This is largely linked to a lack of nurses in clinical leadership and lack of faculty and researchers in the academic health system in general. Institutional nursing leaders are aware of the need to partner with academic nursing but they are facing barriers due to insufficient funding, research support, and faculty.
The report includes carefully outlined recommendations for academic nursing and academic health centers, encouraging the two to work together, and delineating how the government can further support the field of academic nursing through funding and helping remove barriers that impact scope of practice. There are specific implementation strategies available and an organizational self-assessment tool to determine the current degree of alignment between higher education institutions and the healthcare system to help highlight what areas the most need work.
This strategic framework put out in the report by the AACN serves as a blueprint for how nursing schools and academic nurses can take action. Their action must include finding new ways to enhance clinical practice, educate professional nurses, collaborate with key stakeholders, strengthen nursing research, and advance policy agendas. There are also 14 real-world examples of nursing schools who are already engaged in best practices. By putting out this report, the AACN hopes to have a large impact on baccalaureate and higher degree nursing programs and assist schools and practice partners as they implement the recommendations.
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