The NCSBN 2023 Environmental Scan: Nursing at a Crossroads—An Opportunity for Action

Addressing the Shortage of Academic Nurse Educators: Recommendations for Educational Institutions Based on Nominal Group Technique Research

AIM

The purpose of this qualitative study was twofold: 1) explore factors contributing to the shortage of academic nurse educators (ANEs) and 2) identify opportunities to address these factors from the perspectives of nursing education institutions.

BACKGROUND

The nurse faculty shortage is a major national concern, with inadequate recruitment and retention. Addressing the nursing faculty shortage is important to maintain a sustained nursing workforce.

METHOD

Using a nominal group technique (NGT), a group of 45 diverse nurse educators from across the United States formed a virtual workgroup.

RESULTS

Findings led to an action plan formulated to guide educational institutions with ways to decrease the ANE shortage through recruitment and retention.

CONCLUSION

The evidence demonstrates the need for educational institutions to concentrate efforts on recruiting and retaining ANEs to combat the nursing shortage. The analysis offers recommendations to institutions to increase the number of qualified ANEs.

The Journey and Experiences of Female Hispanic Nurse Leaders

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to understand the experience of female Hispanic nurses in formal leadership roles.

BACKGROUND

Research has identified that a diverse nursing leadership workforce is essential to providing optimal patient care. Little is known about the phenomenon of minority nurse leaders, particularly female Hispanic nurses in leadership roles.

METHODS

Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology guided the interviews of 15 female Hispanic nurses in leadership roles.

RESULTS

Three themes were generated that described the environment in which leaders lived: family, culture, and healthcare organization. Four phenomenological themes were identified: weaving my life fabric, my inner dialogue, weight on my shoulders, and paving the way.

CONCLUSION

The study findings highlight the importance of a diverse and inclusive nursing leadership workforce. By proactively addressing equal opportunities, reducing barriers to career advancement, and developing strategies to support and encourage minority nurses, organizations and communities can recruit and retain qualified underrepresented minority nurse leaders.

Assessing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Nursing Education: A National Study of Prelicensure RN Programs

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on prelicensure nursing education, leading to widespread disruptions that may have implications for nursing students' learning and engagement outcomes. Understanding how the rapid shift to online and simulation-based teaching methods has affected new graduates' clinical preparedness is critical to ensure patient safety moving forward.

Purpose

To assess the impact of institutional, academic, and demographic characteristics on prelicensure nursing students' academic, initial postgraduation, and early career outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

We conducted a mixed-methods longitudinal study focused on prelicensure registered nurse (RN) students entering the core of their didactic and clinical nursing coursework during the pandemic. This study uses a combination of real-time student and faculty self-report data, including externally validated instruments, within and end-of-program standardized test scores, and focus group findings. Various statistical methods, ranging from simpler descriptive and non-parametric methods to Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) models and detailed textual analysis, are applied to assess student, faculty, and institution-level data.

Results

The final sample includes more than 1,100 student and faculty participants affiliated with 51 prelicensure RN programs located across 27 states. Leveraging more than 4,000 course observations collected from fall 2020 to spring 2022 and supplemented by the rich personal narratives of over 60 focus group participants, this study illuminates the breadth, scale, and ever-evolving nature of prelicensure RN programs' efforts to maintain the continuity of nursing students' education during the public health crisis. In doing so, it captures the many ways in which nursing administrators, faculty, and students sought to address the unparalleled challenges they confronted on a day-to-day basis. In particular, the findings provide critical insights into the efficacy of the changes nursing programs made to their course delivery formats to adjust to the confluence of rapidly evolving federal, state, and private restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Conclusion

This study stands as the most comprehensive assessment of prelicensure nursing education in the United States since the onset of COVID-19. It extends knowledge by linking potential deficiencies in students' didactic and clinical education during the pandemic and their early career preparedness, clinical competence, and the patient safety implications therein.

Education and the health professions: explaining policy choices among the states

Recent calls for restructuring of the nation's health care system have highlighted the deficiencies in the current system of education for the health professions. Of particular concern are the dominance of specialization and hospital-based training and the tendency of new health care providers to settle in communities without substantial health needs. The states are the key actors in reforming health professions education, serving as a primary funding source for health professions schools, chief licensors and regulators of health professions, regulators of private health insurance, key providers of Medicaid, and architects of a variety of subsidy and regulatory programs providing incentives for health professionals to choose specialties and locations for practice. This article provides a taxonomy of state policies affecting health professions education reform and classifies the states according to the choices they have made. Findings show that few states take advantage of their policy options across the four policy types and that most tend to concentrate their efforts on a few policies--ignoring potential means of encouraging more primary care providers in underserved areas. Results from regression models explaining state choice of policy adoption highlight the political nature of policy choice and the highly variable nature of state response in health professions education reform.