Nursing Agenda For The Future: A Case Study

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In 2002, a national coalition of nursing leaders was formed to combat the nursing shortage in America. The American Nurses Association (ANA) unveiled an initiative called Nursing’s Agenda for the Future. This initiative was launched as a strategic action plan to ensure the future of nurses in the health care field and prevent the onset of a nurse staffing crisis. The plan has ten key domains: leadership and planning, economic value, delivery systems/nursing models, work environment, legislation/regulation/policy, public relations/communication, professional/nursing culture, education, recruitment/retention, and diversity (Kany, 2004).
Although nurses are the backbone of the healthcare profession, there continues to be an overwhelming shortage of nurses. Analysts predict that the shortage of nurse will increase to more than 400,000 by 2020 (Maes, 2002). A few contributing factors to the nursing shortage include the aging of the baby boomers as well as the increased need for healthcare. Nurses are retiring from the healthcare field and nursing programs have not been able to keep up with fulfilling the demand.
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There are many people who would like to be a nurse, but have difficulties getting into a nursing program. Some have issues with their grades and others are not able to attend school on a full time basis due to prior commitments. Also, there are not enough clinic sites for students to train. Nursing programs need to make learning opportunities more accessible for non-traditional students. They should extend clinic sites beyond the local hospitals and look toward partnering with nursing homes and other healthcare