Montana Receives $300,000 Grant to Build a More Highly Educated Nursing Workforce
September 04, 2012 — MSU News Service
BOZEMAN – Montana is one of nine states selected to receive a two-year, $300,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help create a more highly educated and diverse nursing workforce.
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the grants provide funds for nursing coalitions in each state to work with academic institutions and employers to help nurses earn advanced degrees. In particular, states will encourage strong partnerships between community colleges and universities to make it more efficient for nurses to transition to a baccalaureate degree and beyond. The ultimate goals are to improve patient care and help fill faculty and advanced practice nursing positions. In Montana, the goals for the first two years of the grant include improving incentives for nurses who seek additional education and removing barriers so registered nurses with associate degrees can progress toward a bachelor’s degree in nursing.
The Montana grant will be made to the Montana Area Health Education Center in the MSU College of Nursing on behalf of the Montana Action Coalition. In addition to Montana, states chosen to receive similar grants are California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington.
The funding comes from a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program, Academic Progression in Nursing, or APIN, which is designed to respond to recommendations from the Institute of Medicine for improving health in the U.S.
“The Montana Action Coalition is thrilled to have been chosen as a recipient of this grant,” said Casey Blumenthal, vice president of MHA, An Association of Montana Healthcare Providers. “The goal of the Montana project is to build partnerships among nursing education and practice to help achieve the new national recommendations for nursing education.”
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, about half of nurses in the United States have a bachelor’s degree or higher, but the Institute of Medicine recommends that 80 percent of the nursing workforce have bachelor’s degrees by the year 2020.
“The nation needs a well-educated nursing workforce to ensure an adequate supply of public health and primary care providers, improve care for patients living with chronic illness, and in other ways meet the needs of our aging and increasingly diverse population,” said Pamela Austin Thompson, national program director for APIN, chief executive officer of AONE and senior vice president for nursing at the American Hospital Association. “We have great confidence in the nine states that will receive these grants to implement bold and effective strategies that will work in their states and create models that other states can utilize.”
In addition to awarding grants, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is also supporting “The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action,” a collaborative effort to advance solutions to challenges facing the nursing profession. The campaign is coordinated through the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It supports 49 state-based action coalitions around the country that are leading the APIN work in each of the nine funded states.
APIN is run by the American Organization of Nurse Executives on behalf of the Tri-Council for Nursing. The Tri-Council for Nursing consists of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the National League for Nursing, American Nurses Association, and the American Organization of Nurse Executives, which is leading the $4.3 million, two-year initiative.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on pressing health and health care issues in the United States and works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, measurable and timely change. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.
Contact: Kristin Juliar, director, Montana Office of Rural Health and Area Health Education Center, (406) 994-6003 or [email protected]
——————————————————-
RWJF Launches New Initiative to Support Academic Progression in Nursing
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) yesterday announced the launch of the Academic Progression in Nursing (APIN) initiative, to advance state and regional strategies to create a more highly educated nursing workforce. The $4.3 million, Phase 1 two year-initiative will provide funding to state Action Coalitions as they work to advance the recommendation in the Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, that 80 percent of the nursing workforce be prepared at the baccalaureate level by 2020.
The nine funded Action Coalitions will each work on at least one strategy related to academic progression and at least one related to employment for baccalaureate or higher-prepared nurses, to ensure demand for their services. Thus, academic-service partnerships are key to the success of this effort.
“Our Action Coalitions around the country have generated extraordinary collaboration between nurses and other leaders, who are working together to build a more highly educated and diverse nursing workforce, promote nurse leadership, support interprofessional collaboration, ensure that nurses practice to the full extent of their education and training, and improve data collection,” Susan B. Hassmiller, RN, PhD, FAAN, RWJF senior adviser for nursing, said in a release. “We are confident that the new models they create will be replicable and help achieve our goal to have 80 percent of the nursing workforce be prepared at the baccalaureate level or higher by 2020. Advancing a more highly educated, diverse workforce is essential to achieving the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s mission to improve health and health care in this country.”
The initiative will be led by the Tri-Council for Nursing, consisting of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, National League for Nursing, American Nurses Association and the American Organization of Nurse Executives.
Learn more about the Campaign for Action.
Read more about the Action Coalitions.
Watch the Action Coalition video series.