"Creating our own destiny"

Arizona Nurse,  Nov 2002  by Player, Kathy

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Nursing leaders in Arizona have been addressing solutions to the nursing shortage. Several initiatives are underway including: AzNA Work Environment Project, Campaign for Caring, Governor's Nursing Shortage Task Force, University Studies/Projects and the Nurse Reinvestment Act (National). In addition, this spring, the Arizona legislature passed SB 1260 mandating that state nursing programs increase capacity by 200% by the year 2005, if financially supported by the hospital and healthcare community. Addressing the nursing shortage is not the problem of any one organization, but a problem needing input and action from a variety of sources within our nursing community.

This past July, the Arizona Nurses Association (AzNA) and the Arizona Organization of Nurse Executives (AzONE) partnered to host the first Arizona Nursing Consortium. The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association (AzHHA) supported this meeting with a grant through the Campaign for Caring. This consortium was composed of approximately 22 nurse leaders from both public and private universities and colleges across the state, the Arizona State Board of Nursing, AzHHA, AzONE and AzNA. Kathy Malloch, RN, PhD, president of the Arizona State Board of Nursing and AzNA member, served as the group's facilitator.

The purpose of this Consortium is to function as a leadership group to drive the direction of change in the nursing community. Prior to the meeting, each college and university submitted a summary of projected capacity of new students for the next five years. The summary of this data will be used to determine several key benchmarks for nursing in Arizona. For example, what is Arizona's desired number of RNs/100,000 population? Several other defined targeted benchmarks will be necessary to plan for the future such as: turnover, vacancy rates, number of graduating nurses selecting an Arizona facility for employment, and the number of nurses leaving or entering Arizona.

Once the foundational questions were brought forward an action plan was put together of possible ideas for strategies on increasing nursing enrollment in schools. As important as it is to increase enrollment, the group recognized much work still needed to be done on increasing the retention of working nurses.

The follow-up steps for the consortium include pulling together the data needed to further define target benchmarks for Arizona, create an ad hoc task force to address funding to support the proposed ideas and lastly to promote and incorporate the forces of magnetism into nursing work environments. The Consortium will continue with their work and AzNA will assist in convening the group and act as the lead integrator. This group will work with and through other existing groups, such as the Governor's Nursing Shortage Task Force in assisting to solve the nursing shortage crisis.

Kathy Player RN, Ed. D,

Colleen Hallberg, RN, MSN

Copyright Arizona State Nurses Association Nov 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved