If the Nurse Education, Expansion, and Development Act of 2009 is passed then the federal government will be authorized to award grants to increase the number of nursing faculty and students entering baccalaureate nursing schools. Although measures have already been taken to solve the challenges of the nursing shortage, they have not been successful. The Nurse Reinvestment Act initially worked to increase applications to schools of nursing by 125 percent, yet nursing schools have failed to accommodate the increase in potential students due to limited resources and limited qualified Nurse Educators. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing estimates that between the years 2008-2009, 62.8 percent of nursing schools had from 1 to 16 vacant faculty positions. An even more shocking statistic that much of the health care population does not understand is that 49,948 eligible nursing student candidates were denied admission to nursing schools in 2008, primarily due to an insufficient number of faculty members. Looking at the current nursing trends, there will be at least 2,616 unfilled faculty positions in 2012. This act will ultimately prepare nursing students to serve as faculty through additional course work in education and by ensuring competency in advanced practice areas.
This Act has many potential impacts on the nursing field, clients, and health care system. Due to the increasing acuity of patients and the large population of geriatric patients, it is imperative that we have enough nurses to care for this influx of sick patients. The current number of doctorial nursing graduates has increased significantly over the past decade, however there are not enough incentives for these education prepared nurses to enter the teaching profession. We will continue to have to turn away potential nursing student candidates if we do not increase the number of faculty members. This act works by giving colleges the incentive to hire more nursing teachers and expand their programs. Although we have a pressing need to produce more BSN prepared nurses it is equally important that these nurses are fully qualified to be competent and successful in acute care settings and throughout the health care system. This Act will not allow the substitution of standards to receive the grant money, because many limitations and requirements from the institution are required to receive grant money. The successes of this Act will improve nurse staffing especially in the hospital and will in turn allow a higher level of care for patients. The health care center is strongly impacted by nurses because they are essential to patient care.
The governmental objective is to increase the number of nursing students and faculty through Health Resources and Services Administration offering a set grant to eligible schools of nursing. The grant is intended to be used for the hiring of new faculty, retaining current faculty, purchasing educational equipment and audiovisual laboratories, enhancing clinical laboratories, repairing and expanding infrastructure, and recruiting students. The basis on the grant will be determined by undergraduate or graduate level and full or part-time students. There will be limitations of the grant based upon how long the student plans to attend school and whether or not the school is an accredited school of nursing. The school will also have to meet the Secretary of Education’s requirements to be declared eligible to receive a grant.
If the Act is approved, the political impact will be an increase in the amount of federal government control over nursing education. Basically, a secretary to the Health Resources and Services Administration will decide which schools are allowed access to the federal grants. Additionally, the secretary is allowed to make “spot checks” to ensure that the schools are using the grants as they assured in the schools application. If schools are not in accordance with their assurances, the secretary has the right to revoke their application for the grant. As this amendment has not yet been passed into law, it remains unseen how strict or how relaxed the secretary will be when he or she is “spot checking the schools.” The main sponsor of the bill in the Senate is Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois. His co-sponsors in the Senate include Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Edward Kaufman of Delaware, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Ron Wyden of Oregon. While in the House, the main sponsor is Representative Nita Lowey of New York. Her co-sponsors include David Price of North Carolina and Janice Schakowsky of Illinois.
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