BOX 1-2Recommendations from The Future of Nursing: Leading Change,
Advancing Health*
Recommendation 1: Remove scope-of-practice barriers.
Advanced practice registered nurses should be able to practice to
the full extent of their education and training.
Recommendation 2: Expand opportunities for nurses to lead and
diffuse collaborative improvement efforts. Private and
public funders, health care organizations, nursing education
programs, and nursing associations should expand opportunities for
nurses to lead and manage collaborative efforts with physicians and
other members of the health care team to conduct research and to
redesign and improve practice environments and health systems. These
entities should also provide opportunities for nurses to diffuse
successful practices.
Recommendation 3: Implement nurse residency programs.
State boards of nursing, accrediting bodies, the federal government,
and health care organizations should take actions to support
nurses' completion of a transition-to-practice program (nurse
residency) after they have completed a prelicensure or advanced
practice degree program or when they are transitioning into new
clinical practice areas.
Recommendation 4: Increase the proportion of nurses with a
baccalaureate degree to 80 percent by 2020. Academic
nurse leaders across all schools of nursing should work together to
increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree from
50 to 80 percent by 2020. These leaders should partner with
education accrediting bodies, private and public funders, and
employers to ensure funding, monitor progress, and increase the
diversity of students to create a workforce prepared to meeting the
demands of diverse populations across the lifespan.
Recommendation 5: Double the number of nurses with a doctorate
by 2020. Schools of nursing, with support from private
and public funders, academic administrators and university trustees,
and accrediting bodies, should double the number of nurses with a
doctorate by 2020 to add to the cadre of nurse faculty and
researchers, with attention to increasing diversity.
Recommendation 6: Ensure that nurses engage in lifelong
learning. Accrediting bodies, schools of nursing, health
care organizations, and continuing competency educators from
multiple health professions should collaborate to ensure that nurses
and nursing students and faculty continue their education and engage
in lifelong learning to gain the competencies needed to provide care
for diverse populations across the lifespan.
Recommendation 7: Prepare and enable nurses to lead change to
advance health. Nurses, nursing education programs, and
nursing associations should prepare the nursing workforce to assume
leadership positions across all levels, while public, private, and
governmental health care decision makers should ensure that
leadership position are available to and filled by nurses.
Recommendation 8: Build an infrastructure for the collection
and analysis of interprofessional health care workforce
data. The National Health Care Workforce Commission, with
oversight from the Government Accountability Office and the Health
Resources and Services Administration, should lead a collaborative
effort to improve research and the collection and analysis of data
on health care workforce requirements. The Workforce Commission and
the Health Resources and Services Administration should collaborate
with state licensing boards, state nursing workforce centers, and
the Department of Labor in this effort to ensure that the data are
timely and publicly accessible.
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Recommendations listed in this box are abbreviated. See Appendix B for the full
version of each recommendation.
