Future Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health IOM Report

The IOM report: Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.
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The IOM Report: Future Of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.
The nursing profession is the largest among all the health professions that makes up the healthcare sector, more than 3 million registered nurses are in active practice. Nursing roles are crucial in delivering quality healthcare services; expanded roles of nurses have seen nurses being influential in the decision-making process within various leadership positions. A report released by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2010 titled " the future of nursing: leading change, advancing health" highlights some of the key recommendations on the future nursing practice (The Institute of Medicine, 2010).
The IOM report highlights the need to expand the scope of nursing practice and adapt to the changing care needs in the coming decades. The IOM report paved the way to many reforms, especially within many healthcare organizations to reorganize their practice in an attempt to align themselves accordingly to meet care demands (The Institute of Medicine, 2010). One notable example is the Robert Wood Foundation Committee of experts who assessed the IOM report and developed a five-year strategic plan to implement key recommendations of the report.
The Robert Wood Foundation in partnership with The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), one of the state-based interest group launched a campaign to accelerate health care reforms at the state and national levels (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014). The paper will focus on the state of Nevada as one of the examples of state-based action coalitions in the US, presenting how the state of Nevada is advancing the goals for the future of nursing as recommended by the IOM.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) committee report.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report was an outcome report from the initial IOM report of 2010; the RWJF report contained four major initiatives that were seen to be necessary for the future nursing profession (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014). The RWJF report initiated a two-year program to evaluate the nursing profession conducting a comprehensive research of nursing roles in various settings (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014). The report analyzed the qualification requirement for nurses to assess the impact of individual levels of education versus service delivery (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014).
The RWJF committee identified several barriers limiting nurses from practicing based on their levels of education, due to the ongoing health care reform. The four major recommendations by the committee includes
1 The need for nurses to discharge their duties in line with their education. Qualified nurses need to be permitted to practice to the full extent of their education by expanding their scope of practices (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014).
2 The report further recommended that all nurses to align their practice with the changing healthcare environment by acquiring additional knowledge to stay competent. Nurses should access flexible education system to encourage them to enroll and advance their education (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014). Nurses were required to stay competent by adopting the evidence-based practice, including advanced technology, and important medical breakthrough to improve healthcare provision (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014).
3 Since nurse’s roles within the health care sector are crucial, nurses should form part of the collaborative team that includes other health care professionals to improve health care services. Nurses need to be encouraged to take leadership positions to influence policies, and legislation that will improve their working environment (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014).
4 The report also recommended the need to improve the working environment to enable nurses to form part of a team that would be involved in research by collecting data. Nurses are better placed to gather important information that can help in research to improve the general health sector (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014).
The importance of IOM future of nursing report about nursing practice.
The IOM report triggered many healthcare organizations into action, with several stakeholders working together to fulfill some of the key recommendations (Fineberg & Lavizzo-Mourey, 2013). Policy reforms of the Affordable Care Act have promoted a patient-centered care process in a more coordinated process with proper teamwork as recommended by the IOM (F...