Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois issued a proposed amendment, which can also be cited as the Nurse Education, Expansion and Development Act of 2009, to the Public Health Service Act that would allow for capitation grants that would help to increase the number of nursing faculty and students. As the nursing shortage is becoming a hot issue in healthcare it would be extremely beneficial to increase funding to nursing schools to allow for a greater amount of staff to educate an increasing amount of future nurses. The amendment would not only help to purchase educational equipment but would also help to increase the amount of nurses prepared with master’s and doctoral degrees to become involved in the nurse educator profession. An increase in funds would allow for an increase in paid nursing educator positions. The reasons behind allowing capitation grants to help increase faculty and students are indicated by various statistics cited in S. 497. An estimate by the American Association of College of Nursing stated that in 2008-2009, 62.8% of nursing schools had anywhere from 1 to 16 vacant nursing faculty positions. 17.8% of these schools needed more faculty but lacked the appropriate funding to fulfill the needs. In 2008, 49, 948 eligible persons were denied acceptance into a nursing program mostly because of a nursing faculty shortage. It is seen that there is an increase in master’s and doctoral prepared nurses, but there is still a lack of appropriate amount of persons to fill the teaching needs. It is estimated that if the current situations remains unchanged, by 2012 there will be at least 2,616 vacant faculty nursing positions. There was a monthly labor review done in November of 2007 by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics that predicts more than one million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2016. How will those one million predicated nurse roles be fulfilled if there is lack of funding to increase nurse educators?
The S.497 bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on February 2, 2009 during the 111th congressional session. The new congressional session (112th) begins on January 3, 2011. We will continue to track the bills progress during the new session. Cosponsors of the bill were Senator Gillibrand(NY),Kaufman(DE), Wyden(OR), Inouye(HI) and Merkley(OR).
This is certainly a big topic that relates directly to us, as current nursing students. The statistics listed in your post were really shocking to me, especially that in 2008, almost 50,000 students were not able to be accepted into nursing programs. That fact is truly unfortunate. If more funding was provided to nursing schools, more students could be accepted to the programs, subsquently become nurses, and contribute to the profession to decrease the shortage. I am really glad that there is a current bill proposing this! I like that the bill approaches the educational deficit from multiple angles, including providing more necessary equipment for the students themselves and also increasing funding to provide more paid nursing education positions.
ReplyDeleteI think that our own university is seeing the effects of a decreased amount of funding for nursing education. I know that if the James Madison University nursing program had access to more funding to hire more nursing staff, they would be able to increase the number of admission slots available to potential nursing students. As I mentioned before, more nursing students results in more new graduate nurses which could possibly solve the ultimate problem of a decreased number of nurses working in the medical field. I am anxious to see where this bill goes!
Meagan thank you for your interest in our bill, and those statistics that you pointed out alarmed our group also. It is amazing that something that seems so simple such as funding is what is behind a major problem to this nursing shortage. It seems unfair that our country dedicates so much money to other projects when the nursing shortage affects the entire nation. With the current health care reform it will be very interesting to see how funding will be further impacted by universal health care. At JMU we have all experienced the impact of the lack of funding for the nursing department, despite the fact that we are all receiving a substantial education. There have been times in our skills labs that equipment used to demonstrate nursing skills were defective and/or extremely overused. Even at clinical, despite the warmth and acceptance of hospital staff nurses it was difficult at times to grab your clinical instructor in order to demonstrate a certain skill. As a side thought, consider how amazing an education we are already receiving, and imagine how much more we could grasp from JMU’s nursing program with additional funding. Stay posted Meagan with our upcoming blogs and hopefully more statistics!
ReplyDeleteDue to the fact that multiple groups have chosen to focus on The Nurse Education, Expansion, and Development Act of 2009 for their blog goes to show that this is definitely a topic of interest, especially to nursing students. I feel that this act would be a great way to help increase the number of nursing faculty and students, which would allow for a greater amount of staff to educate an increasing amount of future nurses. As a James Madison University nursing student, I know how difficult it is to be accepted into the program. There are many students interested in the program, but only enough slots to take the best of the best. Fortunately I was accepted, but one of my friends was not and ended up switching her major. Although the deciding factors of who gets in and who doesn’t are fair and understandable, it is still very frustrating to know that some of the people who didn’t get accepted would make very good nurses. One point in your GPA could make all the difference. Will a student with a GPA of 3.5 make a better nurse than a student with a GPA of 3.4? The Nurse Education, Expansion, and Development Act is a great way to give these students a chance and it would also help improve the nursing shortage we are currently having to deal with in this country.
ReplyDeleteMeredith: I really like your focus on whether or not a person's GPA would make them a better nurse. We are truly hoping that all those people despite their GPA who would make a good nurse get their chance to prove their skills with the passage of these pieces of legislation. Hopefully once we become active nurses we can see these changes take place. Thanks for your support.
ReplyDelete