“The future of Nursing: Leading change, Advancing Health” report released in 2010 by Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing at The Institute of Medicine (IOM), offers a blueprint on what the United States needs to embark on in their healthcare systems in order to achieve its goal of providing a patient-centered healthcare that is of high quality, inexpensive and accessible to all U.S. citizens. The healthcare workforce in the United States is mainly made up of nurses. This therefore means that most of the changes that are proposed in the report are going to affect the nursing profession which is made up of over three million members (National Academy of Sciences, 2013).
On transforming education, the IOM report will impact nursing profession through a number of ways. One of such impacts is that the number of nurses with higher education and training will increase significantly. This will be as a result of the enhanced teaching system that encourage and support a flawless educational progression. Such an improved education system for nurses will ensure that nurses continue receiving education even after receiving their licenses that allow them to practice nursing hence they will be constantly provided with an opportunity to improve their understanding and experience on various nursing roles such as improving the quality of healthcare, care administration as well as management. Transforming education for nurses will therefore mean that there will be more nurses with baccalaureate degree, degrees as well as master’s and doctoral qualifications.
This will help in alleviating the shortages that the nursing profession has been experiencing for quite long in the various nursing positions and more specifically in the primary care provision, various faculties and also in the fields of research (National Academy of Sciences, 2013). Nurses should therefore prepare adequately by mastering the foundational competencies that will enable them undertake and successfully complete various degree programs that will arise with the implementation of IOM report on transforming education. On nursing practice, the IOM report proposes that nurses should always be empowered to carry out their nursing practice fully that is directly proportional to the education and training that they have so far gained. Implementing this proposal thus will impact nursing in diverse ways. One of such impact on nursing will be enabling nurses to transform the nature of primary care significantly through their innovative strategies. Transforming how nurses practice their profession will lead to elimination of several regulatory hurdles that often prevent nurses from performing some patient care practices without supervision of physicians despite nurses being fully qualified to carry out such primary patient care practices.
This transformation in nursing practice will help reduce the turnover rates which have been very common mostly among nurses who have recently graduated. In order for student nurses to meet this goal by IOM report, student nurses should focus on transforming themselves as individuals to suit the new opportunities and roles that will come along as a result of transformation in the nursing practice (Duckett, 2012). They should change how they practice nursing to meet the expectations of the report, they should always strive to provide a patient-centered care that ensures full utilization of the skills and knowledge that they have gained through their education and training.
The impact of IOM report on the Nurse’s role as a leader is the most critical part of the report. Leadership is very important aspect in the success of any organization. For healthcare to realize the changes as stipulated in the Affordable Care Act, nurses should be given an equal opportunity just like other health professional in the healthcare sector e.g. physicians (American Nurses Association, 2015). They should take the leadership roles and positions when it comes to various processes such as designing of different healthcare plans. Transforming leadership for nurses will result in more nurse leaders at all levels of healthcare system. This will therefore ensure that nurses have leadership skills and competencies that will enable them to identify different problems in the healthcare systems, come up with or design and implement programs or plans that will help in solving the problem (National Academy of Sciences, 2013).
They will also closely monitor and make the necessary changes that will lead to realization of the plans or goals that they have set. More importantly, transforming leadership in nursing will give nurses an opportunity to be equal partners with other healthcare professionals in designing and implementation of different healthcare policies. This therefore means that nurses will get room of influencing healthcare policies by taking an active role in designing them. To prepare nurses for future leadership positions, training in nursing schools, colleges and universities should equip nurses with the required leadership skills and competencies (National Academy of Sciences, 2013).
References
American Nurses Association. (2015). IOM Future of Nursing Report. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ThePracticeofProfessionalNursing/workforce/IOM-Future-of-Nursing-Report-1
Kathy Duckett. (2012). Nursing Journals | NursingCenter. Retrieved from http://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=1314001#P41
National Academy of Sciences. (2015). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health - Institute of Medicine. Retrieved from http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing-Leading-Change-Advancing-Health.aspx
Richard Ridge. (2011). Nursing Journals | NursingCenter. Retrieved from http://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=1176058
