The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation recently announced they had awarded 10 grants in order to help increase the nurse workforce population.
The $10 million in grants represent the fourth phase of the foundations’ Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future program, which aims at dealing with what they feel is a nation-wide nursing shortage. It does so by supporting the philanthropy efforts of regional and local organizations that encourage the growth of the nursing population.
"Nurses are the cornerstone of health reform and are the nation’s most direct link to patient safety and quality of care," Susan B. Hassmiller, senior adviser for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said. "We are committed to helping find the most innovative solutions to the nursing shortage so we can protect patients and reduce costs now and over the long term."
The idea behind the grants is to help local organizations test ideas in their communities, and then to share successful strategies with other organizations across the nation. The grantees represent a variety of programs, including those involving education, technology, and geriatric care.
The grants awarded this year start the involvement of 19 foundations across 12 states in the partnership’s fourth year. In its first three years, the partnership, through the foundations it has granted money to, has helped found 300 local partnerships. The partnerships bring together different nursing organizations in order to try and expand the nursing workforce.
The states where this year’s organizations are located include: Arkansas; Florida; Illinois; Iowa; Massachusetts; Minnesota; Mississippi; Nebraska; New Hampshire; Rhode Island; South Dakota; and West Virginia.
Given statistics made available by the U.S. Census Bureau, efforts such as those put forward by the partnership may be working. Currently, there are 2.4 million nurses in the country, and the census predicts that the nursing profession will experience the largest growth of any occupation between 2002 and 2012.
