RWJF's "Charting Nursing's Future" Documents a 40-Year Investment in Nursing

The current issue of Charting Nursing's Future celebrates four decades of investments made by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which target nursing's ability to improve care and strengthen the nursing profession.

This brief explores the impact of Foundation programs in five areas:

1. expanding roles for nurses
2. building educational capacity
3. demonstrating nurses' contributions to quality and safety
4. creating leaders for the 21st century
5. bridging gaps in research and data

Programs in these areas have had a significant influence on policy and practice. Moreover, they provide valuable lessons for strengthening the nursing profession and leveraging nurses' contributions to meet the demands of a reformed health care system. The programs featured in this issue are those that have been designed with nurses in mind; however, there are many others - such as the Center for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice and the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellows program - that serve the broader health care workforce including nurses. With the IOM's 2011 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, as its guide, the Foundation's future investments will continue in this tradition.

Click here to read the issue.

How Nurses Are Solving Primary Care Challenges

"In the area of primary care, economic and demographic pressures have driven innovation. Many such breakthroughs focus on the roles of nurses, many of whom are leading an evolution in the delivery of primary care. Nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives, for example, make up a growing portion of the primary care workforce. Meanwhile, RNs and licensed practical nurses are increasingly tracking patients to make sure they get the care they need. In addition, nurses at several levels are managing chronic conditions and coordinating care transitions."

Check out the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's latest edition of Charting Nursing's Future which details the ways that nurses are stepping up to solve primary care challenges across the country.

Solving Many of the United States' Primary Care Challenges

With the Affordable Care Act being upheld earlier this summer, there will a large flux on individuals with insurance coverage that require primary care. As many of our previous blog posts have already discussed, there is already a primary care provider shortage and this shortage is expected to grow even further after 2014.

The most recent Charting Nursing's Future, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, highlighted how nurses can help solve many of primary care’s most pressing challenges, including access and cost.

Gene Steuerle, writing for his own blog, The Government We Deserve, also focused on the role of nurses in reducing costs while providing the same level, or even better care than physicians for many basic services. Mr. Steuerle, who is a renowned economic and tax expert, argued that the current primary care provider shortage is a result of an uncompetitive industry unwilling to relinquish control over services that many non-physicians have the training and education to provide.

Finally, a collaborative group of scholars published a thorough article in the New England Journal of Medicine, highlighting how our health system can reduce costs while improving care. The utilization of nurses and other allied health professionals was highlighted by the authors as an integral piece of reforming our broken health system.