Iowa has been selected as an Action Coalition by the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, coordinated through the Center to Champion Nursing in America (CCNA), an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), to ensure that all Americans have access to high-quality, patient-centered health care, with nurses contributing to the full extent of their capabilities.

The Iowa Action Coalition will work with the campaign to implement the recommendations of the landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. The Iowa Action Coalition’s Steering Committee includes:

• Eric Crowell, president and CEO of Iowa Health System
• Jack Evans, Iowa Board of Regents and president of Hall-Perrine Foundation
• Lisa Sieren, statewide coordinator of United Ways of Iowa
• Sharon Treinen, executive council member of Iowa AARP

The campaign seeks active participation from states, national organizations and individuals from health care, business, education, government and philanthropic sectors to ensure that the recommendations are translated into actions that result in improved patient-centered care. Specifically, the Campaign for Action is working to implement the recommendations of the IOM report with an emphasis on:

• Strengthening nurse education and training;
• Enabling nurses to practice to the full extent of their education and training;
• Advancing interprofessional collaboration among health care professionals to ensure coordinated and improved patient care;
• Expanding leadership ranks to ensure nurses have a voice on management teams, in boardrooms and during policy debates; and
• Improving health care workforce data collection to better assess and project workforce requirements.

“We are thrilled to add the Iowa Action Coalition to the Action Coalition network,” said Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior adviser for nursing at RWJF and director of Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. “The Campaign for Action is working at every level to build and sustain the changes necessary to improve health care for all Americans, and we know the contributions of the Iowa Action Coalition will be invaluable as we move forward.”

Since its release in October 2010, the Future of Nursing report has made a considerable impact on the way stakeholders are viewing the nursing workforce:

• The report remains one of the most viewed online reports in the IOM’s history and has sparked widespread activity to address the recommendations.
• CCNA, in its role as campaign coordinator, is working with key stakeholders through its Champion Nursing Coalition [1] of 47 national health care, consumer, business and other organizations and Champion Nursing Council [2] of 23 national nursing organizations to implement strategies to advance the IOM recommendations.

“The expertise of our coalition members and our proven capacity were key factors in being selected,” said Rita Frantz, Iowa Action Coalition co-lead, Kelting Dean and professor, University of Iowa College of Nursing. “As a participant in the movement to maximize the contributions of the nurses who deliver health care in our state and nation, the Iowa Action Coalition is excited to bring its energy and ideas to this groundbreaking effort.”

Wendy Gray, co-lead and program director of the Iowa Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program, noted that the Iowa Action Coalition plans to focus on the areas of implementing nurse residency programs and creating an articulation plan for seamless progression of nursing education from associate degree to graduate levels.

Action Coalitions also were announced today in 11 other states: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont. Iowa joins 36 previously-designated Action Coalitions.

For more information about the Campaign for Action go to www.thefutureofnursing.org [3].

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The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action envisions a health care system where all Americans have access to high-quality patient-centered care, with nurses contributing to the full extent of their capabilities. The campaign is coordinated through the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and includes 48 state Action Coalitions and a wide range of health care providers, consumer advocates, policy-makers and the business, academic and philanthropic communities.