'Call to the Profession' spawns strategies to move nursing forward

National nursing organizations have united around a shared vision for the future of the profession and recently developed a strategic plan to address the complex, interrelated factors that have created a growing shortage of nurses.

The plan, Nursing's Agenda for the Future, focuses on strategies that will move the profession forward in quantum leaps, thereby ensuring that consumers have access to high-quality nursing care.

"It is clear that the looming shortage of nurses presents a real threat to our nation's health," said ANA President Mary Foley, MS, RN. Current projections reveal that the supply of registered nurses will no longer meet the demand for nursing services by 2010. The shortfall is blamed, in part, on the aging nursing workforce, declines in nursing school enrollments, and an increased demand for nursing services when aging baby boomers begin requiring care for chronic illnesses and conditions.

Nursing's Agenda for the Future is the result of an in-depth strategic planning process that involved leaders from 60-plus national nursing organizations. They began their work at the "Call to the Nursing Profession" summit in September 2001, which was funded by a $100,000 grant from the American Nurses Foundation (ANF). They collectively developed a plan in which they identified the profession's vision for the year 2010 and then key strategies, which would be implemented in the short term, to achieve that vision.

The plan is organized around 10 key "domains:" leadership and planning, economic value, delivery systems/nursing models, work environment, legislation/regulation/policy, public relations/communications, professional/nursing culture, education, recruitment/retention and diversity. It also details a specific vision for each area and concrete ways nursing organizations can achieve that vision.

In the "education" domain, for example, nursing organizations call for redefining scopes of practice to meet consumers' general and specialized health care needs, and securing funding to establish centers of excellence in education, among other measures.

The strategic plan has been widely circulated among nursing organizations and, to date, 49 nursing groups have submitted more than 200 action plans this year that detail which aspects of Nursing's Agenda they are willing to take on in 2002. New, more targeted action plans are expected to be implemented in 2003 under the guidance of the steering committee. Nursing leaders will advance Nursing's Agenda to stakeholders outside of nursing with a "Call to the Nation" planned for later this year or early 2003. At the Call to the Nation meeting, groups representing the spectrum of policy-makers, consumers, purchasers and providers of health care will be invited to support the plan to ensure high quality nursing care in the future.

Nursing's Agenda for the Future is guided by a steering committee of 19 national nursing organizations, which include the ANA, the American Academy of Nursing, and ANCC.

The steering committee will guide and monitor the overall work on the initiative. And, each organization is serving as a "co-champion" for one of the domains, thereby ensuring the coordination and implementation of the plan.

More information on Nursing's Agenda for the Future and its strategies will be reported in ANA's column, "Issues Update," in the July 2002 issue of the American Journal of Nursing. The report also is available on ANA's Web site at www.NursingWorld.org/naf. Bulk quantities of 50 or more are available for purchase through American Nurses Publishing at www.NursesBooks.org or by calling (800) 637-0323.