Robert Wood Johnson Nursing Education Initiative

[from Philanthropy News Digest]

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Launches Nursing Education Initiative

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced a two-year, $4.3 million initiative to advance state and regional strategies designed to create a more highly educated nursing workforce.

Led by the Tri-Council for Nursing, whose members include theAmerican Association of Colleges of Nursing, the National League for Nursing, the American Nurses Association, and the American Organization of Nurse Executives, the Academic Progression in Nursing (APIN) initiative will provide funding of up to $300,000 over two years to each of nine state action coalitions that have developed or made substantial progress toward achieving a 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendation that 80 percent of nurses have a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree or higher by 2020. To date, roughly half the nurses in the United States have at least a baccalaureate degree.

To advance other recommendations in the IOM report, RWJF also is supporting the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, a collaborative effort to help improve quality in the nursing field and transform the way Americans receive health care. Coordinated through the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation, and the foundation, the campaign supports forty-eight state-based action coalitions around the country.

"Our action coalitions around the country have generated extraordinary collaboration between nurses and other leaders, who are working together to build a more highly educated and diverse nursing workforce, promote nurse leadership, support inter-professional collaboration, ensure that nurses practice to the full extent of their education and training, and improve data collection," said Susan B. Hassmiller, senior advisor for nursing at RWJF. "We are confident that the new models they create will be replicable and help achieve our goal to have 80 percent of the nursing workforce be prepared at the baccalaureate level or higher by 2020."

“Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Launches Initiative to Support Academic Progression in Nursing.” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Press Release 3/21/12.