The Institute of Medicine Report
The nursing profession has seen several transformations that have changed the way nurses behave during practice. One of the events that have seen the transformation of the nursing sector is the Comprehensive Health Care legislation that was passed by Congress and later signed into law by the president in 2010. The future of nursing has been reliant on the legislation, and attempts have been made to improve the legislation. The legislation was followed by a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the future of nursing that has continued to impact the nursing profession from an individual, organizational, and policy level. The IOM was concerned with the transformations that were needed in the nursing sector in a bid to improve the quality of service provision in the US. The recommendations provided by the IOM report were aimed at ensuring that nurses were able to practice to the full extent of the training and education provided, improve the education offered to nurses, incorporate leadership opportunities for nurses and improve the field of data collection for planning and policy-making purposes.
The Americans are entitled to enjoy the health services promised by the government without limits. The nursing sector is one of the fields that should be considered if the health sector is to be improved to incorporate the education and trained given to nurses (Gordon, & Specht, 2018). In a bid to ensure that the nursing field is productive, the nurses are required to practice to the full extent of the training and skills acquired during the training period. The IOM report passes a message to the nurses that they should maximize the skills and training obtained during the schooling time. Also, the nurses are required to commit more time towards active practice to overcome the challenge of technology that has been creating a wider gap between nurses and patients. The primary objective of the nursing profession is to bridge the gap between patients and the medical staff, and thus, the nurses should not let technology come between their relationship and patients. The nursing practice should, therefore, be maximized irrespective of the area of operation. Generally, the message is that the nursing practice should work towards transforming the area of practice.
The education system is among the transformations needed in the nursing sector. The IOM report includes a message that requires nurses to be exposed to high levels of education and training by transforming the system of education and ensuring that the nurses who come out of the education system can fulfill their roles without failure (Marcoux, Dickson, Cahill & Haines, 2017). Additionally, the education provided should equip the nurses with skills to deal with the diverse population that includes a high percentage of the aging population. The changes in the healthcare system cannot be effective without similar changes in the education system; hence, the message by the report. The challenges that have been hindering the nation from getting highly qualified nurses are among the issues that the message aims at addressing. For example, the nurses should be provided with the necessary tools during the training process to avoid insufficiently trained nurses upon graduating from the training institutions.
Leadership is another key message contained in the IOM report. The message requires that nurses play an active and fulltime role in collaboration with physicians and other healthcare officers in an attempt to bring the desired transformations in the US healthcare system. Although not many nurses are motivated by the desire to become leaders upon successful entrance into the career, the transformation of the US healthcare system requires that all nurses uphold leadership qualities that will aid the process of transformation. The incorporation of leadership into nursing will further open doors for opportunities and especially for BSN-prepared nurses. Nurses are required in the report to utilize their knowledge and basic skills to break into leadership and partner with other stakeholders in leading the process of transforming the healthcare system.
Moreover, the nursing sector should incorporate better data collection techniques for planning and policy development. The success of any sector is always dependent on the ability to effectively collect and analyze data (Stamps et al. 2017). The effective analysis of data ensures that planning and policy decisions are based on practical numbers and not approximations. Additionally, the transformation process requires an understanding of the existing procedures and data collection, and analhttps://sharksavewriters.com/iom-future-of-nursing-report-and-nursing/ysis serves the purpose of supporting the analysis. The message aims at bridging the gaps that exist in the workforce data and the need to plan for the transformation process.
In sum, the healthcare system in the US is in a state of transformation. The nursing sector is one of the fields that have been on the journey to support the transformation process. The Institute of Medicine released a report in 2010 that passed four crucial messages to motivate nurses and the government towards supporting the transformation in the healthcare system. Generally, the IOM report is aimed at preparing nurses for the transformation in the healthcare system.
References
Gordon, D. M., & Specht, J. A. (2018). Advancing the Voice of Nursing Through Leadership: The Current State of the Evidence Base.
Marcoux, K. K., Dickson, S. K., Cahill, C. A., & Haines, C. (2017). Advancing the Practice of Nursing through Specialty Fellowship Development.
Stamps, D. C., McCormack, J., Lovetro, C., Berent, G., Opett, K., Glessner, T., … & Pellegrino, J. (2017). The chief nursing officer council: A model to achieve integrated professional practice in health care systems. Nurse Leader, 15(5), 335-340.