Messages of the IOM Report
The nursing profession forms the largest segment of the healthcare workforce in the nation. Nurses’ work on patient care’s frontline and as such, is essential in the realization of the 2010 Affordable Care Act objectives ("The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Health and Medicine Division", 2018). However, there exist certain barriers that hinder an effective response to changing healthcare needs by the nurses, which require to be overcome to ensure that nurses are well-positioned to lead and deliver change and advance health ("The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Health and Medicine Division", 2018). The IOM and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation jointly undertook an initiative to respond to the nursing profession transformation and assessment need in 2008. The joint committee developed four key messages after careful deliberations. These are:
• Nurses are required to practice to the maximum level of their training and education ("The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Health and Medicine Division", 2018). The training that the nurses are taken through is highly intensive, and by practicing the training to its entirety will ensure that they meet and deliver the patients expectations fully.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
• Nurses should acquire higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic profession ("The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Health and Medicine Division", 2018). The profession is changing rapidly, and as such, nurses should ensure that they continuously acquire more knowledge by pursuing higher levels of education. This will help improve their efficiency and ability to keep track with the changing times.
• Nurses should be full practitioners, with physicians and other healthcare professionals, in redesigning health care in the United States ("The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Health and Medicine Division", 2018). More often, nurses are left out in establishing new health care practices which make them feel not part of the change. Making them full practitioners will ensure that the changes are inclusive for better implementation.
• Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and information structure ("The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Health and Medicine Division", 2018). Data is crucial as it provides a basis in from which policies can be developed from. It will help to create policies that are best suited to fit the changing times in the profession.
Impact of the IOM Report on Nursing Education and Nursing Leadership
The IOM report identifies the needs for improved education on the profession. The messages given by the IOM Committee pinpoints the need to improve the education levels in achieving the objectives of the 2010 Legislation. Therefore, the nurses will create the need to improve their education to ensure that they are able to match the patients’ needs. Also, the report will help improve the quality of education offered in medical institutions of learning to ensure that the students’ graduating in the nursing profession are well equipped to meet the nursing professions’ needs currently.
The report also establishes the need to include the nurses in creating changes and redesigning health care in the United States. The nursing profession leadership will, therefore, be actively engaged in lobbying for the inclusion of the nurses while undertaking healthcare changes. This will help ensure that the changes match the current needs of the profession to ensure that the nurses are able to embrace the changes more easily. The leadership is also able to identify the need to provide effective workforce planning for the efficient delivery of patient care services to the patients.
Benefits and Opportunities for BSN-Prepared Nurses
The IOM report in 2010 strongly recommended that 80% of the nursing profession should have a Baccalaureate (BSN) degree by 2020. As a result, some health organizations have embarked on recruiting more BSN-prepared nurses even at entry level (The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, 2011. Pg 171). This is because these nurses are considered to be more competent as compared to the ones not holding the baccalaureate degree. They are considered to be more compassionate and efficient and possess more experience in the profession (The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, 2011. Pg 171). In public and community health setting, the BSN-prepared nurses are said to be more knowledgeable of community-based interventions and possess more skills required in such settings (The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, 2011. Pg 171). This has led to the need to have more practicing BSN-prepared nurses in health institutions, both private and public, to improve patient care delivery.
Importance of Changing Nurse’s Roles and Education in meeting the changing Patient Needs
Healthcare reforms and practices are rapidly changing in the recent times. This calls for the need to change the nursing education to ensure that nurses are informed of the changes happening in the nursing professions policies (Kritek & Hickey, 2012). Also, research on nursing education has helped to identify the changes occurring in the profession with regard to changes in patients care requirements (Kritek & Hickey, 2012). Changing the education will help the nurses to understand the needs of the patients while changing the roles will help to meet the demands of the changing patient care needs for better efficiency of the profession (Kritek & Hickey, 2012).
Significance of Professional Development
Health care keeps changing. The needs of the patients keep evolving, and as such, research is continuously being done to establish new ways of meeting the needs of the changing professional needs (Lockhart, 2016). This means that there is a need for nurses to continuously engage in education to ensure that they understand the changes, and learn the new ways of practicing health care developed through research (Lockhart, 2016). Also, continuous learning helps the nurses to learn and understand the new policies to ensure that they undertake their duties more efficiently and effectively (Lockhart, 2016).
How can Nurses Assist to manage Patient Care Effectively
In most health care institutions, nurses are the ones that are fully engaged in patient care. As such, they interact more with the challenges and the opportunities involved in patient care. They are therefore able to identify the weaknesses and the opportunities that are there to help improve the profession, and as such, can help to ensure that the profession is improved by addressing the flaws and the challenges that they identify in the course of service delivery (Kritek & Hickey, 2012).
References
Kritek, P., & Hickey, M. (2012). Change Leadership in Nursing: How Change Occurs in a Complex Hospital System. Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
Lockhart, J. (2016). Nursing Professional Development for Clinical Educators. Oncology Nursing Society.
The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health : Health and Medicine Division. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing-Leading-Change-Advancing-Health.aspx
The National Academies Press. (2011). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (p. 171). Washington D.C.
