The Nursing Crisis in Tennessee: Building Capacity through Collaboration will expand educational capacity by increasing the number of clinical placement opportunities, enhancing the online clinical orientation process, increasing the supply of qualified nurse educators and promoting a culture for retention by identifying and implementing industry-wide strategies that foster a positive nursing work environment.
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Click here to hear Kaki Friskics-Warren discuss the collaboration between foundations and other partners.
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The PIN site visit with Sherril Gelmon and the Leadership Team took place at The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee on May 22. Pictured (left to right) are James Barnett, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Lois Wagner, Tennessee Center for Nursing; Tracey Williams, The Foundation; Sherril Gelmon, PIN Evaluator; Kaki Friskics-Warren, The Foundation; Pam Taylor, Cyber Healthcare; Deb Wollaber, Belmont School of Nursing; and Beth Hallmark, Belmont School of Nursing. Also participating in the discussions of the program objectives but not pictured are Jennifer Murray, Tennesee Center for Nursing and Chris Clark, Tennessee Hospital Association.
Foundation/
Lead Agency:The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee
Project Partners: Baptist Healing Trust, Belmont University, Cyber Healthcare Solutions, East Tennessee Foundation, HCA Foundation, Memorial Foundation, Nashville Advancement Center, Tennessee Board of Regents, Tennessee Center for Nursing,Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development, Tennessee Hospital Association, The Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
Project Leaders: Kaki Friskics-Warren, Program Officer, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, kfwarren@cfmt.org, phone 615.321.4939 and Lois J. Wagner, Executive Director, Tennessee Center for Nursing, lois@centerfornursing.org, phone 615.242.8205
Brief Project Synopsis:
Connecting generosity to need in order to address emerging community issues is a part of the mission of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (CFMT). Since inception in 1991, CFMT has administered more than $290 million in grants to over 7000 grant recipients that supported community projects and organizations in TN, Southern Kentucky, and across the United States. Our strategic plan states that “in addition to its role as a major grantmaker, CFMT will continue to expand its philanthropic leadership by serving as a catalyst and convener identifying and addressing philanthropic opportunities and unmet and emerging needs”. Our discretionary funding is used to respond to new programs, emerging needs, and innovative services that might not be started or might not continue were it not for CFMT. In 2006, in its first grant addressing the nursing crisis in TN, CFMT awarded our maximum discretionary award of $5000 to the Tennessee Center for Nursing to support the pilot implementation of their online clinical placement program to improve access to clinical placement opportunities for nursing students in Middle Tennessee.
Our project will address needs identified in “Curing the Crisis in Nursing Education: A Master Plan for Tennessee” (2005). Through collaboration among our multiple partners and others, we plan to increase the supply of RNs in Tennessee by expanding our educational capacity in nursing and by improving our capacity to retain practicing RNs through workforce initiatives that foster a positive nursing work environment and a culture of retention.
Project Goals and Objectives:
1) Increase educational capacity by increasing the number of clinical placement opportunities and enhancing the student learning environment.
·Expansion of our existing online Clinical Placement and Clinical Orientation Programs in six additional regions beyond Middle Tennessee.
·Enhance our online orientation program to include a state-of-the-art learning platform with interactive clinical scenarios and student driven decision-making pathways.
2) Increase the supply of qualified nurse educators and enhance the skills of current faculty to meet the needs of the 21st century.
·Implement a Teaching Institute to develop the informatics and simulation technology skills of current nursing faculty.
·Recruit and train expert clinical nurses to become qualified faculty “extenders” under the supervision of qualified faculty of record.
3) Create a culture of retention that promotes a positive nursing work environment and retains practicing RNs.
·Implement a collaborative between nursing leaders and the healthcare industry to identify and implement best practices that promote a culture of retention.
·Implement a Nurse Manager Institute to enhance management skills that foster a culture of retention in the nursing work environment.
Project Strengths:
The project builds on a foundation of collaborative efforts among nursing, healthcare, regulatory, and consumer stakeholders to address nursing workforce issues that was initiated in 1996 under a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Colleagues in Caring” grant and that resulted in the incorporation of the Tennessee Center for Nursing in August 2000. These collaborative efforts are now enhanced by the leadership of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee in increasing the philanthropic engagement of other community and healthcare foundations in these efforts.
Project Challenges:
While there is sufficient collaboration, expertise in technology innovation, and the vision to build the programmatic infrastructure, connecting individual agency and departmental systems, both public and private, will be a short-term challenge. Sustainability presents a long-term challenge.
The Partners Investing in Nursing's Future program is collaborative initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation. Information about Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future is available at www.PartnersInNursing.org.
