The passage of health reform legislation in 2010 led to mixed emotions by health professionals and consumers. Many individuals are concerned that the health care system, as it exists today, is ill prepared to care for an additional 32 million residents of the United States. The oldest members of our population are among the most anxious, fearing a shortage of qualified health professionals. Fortunately, 10 years ago the Hartford Foundation funded the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Initiative (BAGNC) at the American Academy of Nursing, which will play a significant role in the design, implementation, and monitoring of patient centered, effective, and efficient health care services for the fastest growing segment of the American populations—older adults.
The real work required over the next few years is transformation of what, how, and who will provide health care services for older persons that achieves the quality goals of the Institute of Medicine. These goals include patient centered, efficient, equitable, reliable, safe, and timely care. To meet them, we must invest in health professionals who can generate knowledge at the clinical, community, and health system levels.
The Hartford Foundation’s visionary support of a program to improve the capacity of the nation’s largest health profession--registered nurses--to discover and translate knowledge in academic and clinical care settings can drive this transformation. Through Hartford Scholars and Fagin Fellows Programs as well as Universities with Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence across the United States, BAGNC has produced exemplary programs that provide increased opportunities for nurses to train in the delivery of care to multiple vulnerable individuals. As a member of the BAGNC Advisory Committee during my tenure as President of the AAN board, I was able to understand their importance first-hand.
Examples include: the Best Practice Initiative at Oregon Health and Sciences University, which created lasting improvements in wound care and long-term care within the state; the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Arkansas Advancing Excellence Campaign; and the University of Iowa’s creation of evidence-based guidelines for elder care that are used nationwide.
I believe BAGNC and the Hartford Foundation will be key leaders on the quest to improve the nation’s health in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Initiative on the Future of Nursing (IONF). The Initiative’s Committee, of which I am the vice chair, comprises 18 members representing thought leaders from the worlds of education, practice, and policy. The Committee has been meeting for two years to issue a plan for transforming nursing care. The recently released IOFN report, entitled The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, calls for nurses to become full partners in health care and health services reform. The IOFN will launch an implementation plan in November 2010.
I believe the IOFN will lean heavily on BAGNC programs to implement the Future of Nursing plan. These collegial efforts that the Hartford Foundation has created in tandem with universities, professional societies, and funders in health will serve as a platform from which to launch our plan to transform the caring experience of consumers, improve interdisciplinary teams’ abilities to provide excellent, patient centered, efficient and equitable health care services, and facilitate the achievement of true health care accountability beyond the financing of our delivery system.
Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN, is Vice President, Nursing and CNO, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; Past President, American Academy of Nursing; and Vice Chair, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine.
Read all five blogs in the BAGNC 10th Anniversary series: