We give advice and recommendations to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Congress through letters, reports, and recommendations.
Recommendations from the 19th Annual Report
Recommendation 1
The U.S. Congress should fund models that demonstrate a commitment to salary equity and sustainability for nurse faculty commensurate with health care trends and demands.
Recommendation 2
The U.S. Congress should fund the professional development and compensation of preceptors who are supporting preparation of our future nursing workforce through mechanisms including but not limited to stipends and continuing education.
Recommendation 3
The U.S. Congress should fund workforce pathway models that feature paid nursing student internships with an incentivized mentorship program to foster opportunities for nursing students to gain team-based nursing experience in varied healthcare settings.
Recommendation 4
The U.S. Congress should fund educational infrastructure advancement that demonstrates the ability to establish and employ innovative pedagogical strategies (e.g., virtual/augmented reality, robotics, simulation) to enhance undergraduate and graduate nursing education.
Recommendations from the 18th Annual Report
Improving Nursing Education to Advance Public Health Nursing
Recommendation 1
The U.S. Congress, through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, should allocate funding to create educational pathways within academic nursing programs that will enhance and expand the public health nursing workforce, and address the broader needs of the nursing workforce in public health competencies.
Recommendation 2
The U.S. Congress should fund public health nursing workforce development, specifically continuing education, to support enhancement of nurses with public health competencies including but not limited to emergency preparedness and response. Funding should support all nurses, including faculty, preceptors, and frontline nursing professionals, and should encompass training events and the time away from practice to participate in training.
Recommendation 3
The U.S. Congress should allocate specific funding for the Department of Health and Human Service and the Health Resources and Services Administration to develop and enhance faculty education in public health nursing, to increase the number and enhance the expertise of nurses prepared to teach public health competencies and lead public health initiatives.
Recommendation 4
The U.S. Congress should allocate sustainable funding for the establishment and continuation of post-graduate public health education programs (e.g., entry-level nursing residencies and advanced-level nursing fellowships) that address public health competencies and leadership strategies.
Supporting Public Health and Public Health Nursing
Recommendation 5
The U.S. Congress should allocate funding for scholarships, loan forgiveness, and public health role support for entry-level or advanced-level nurses interested in or currently employed in public health as a mechanism to support recruitment and retention efforts within the public health nursing workforce, particularly in medically underserved and critical need areas.
Recommendation 6
The Department of Health and Human Services should support and convene within the next year a summit of diverse and representative public health organizations, foundations, schools of nursing, and others to delineate the required leadership, training, and professional development required to advance the field of public health nursing.
Recommendation 7
The U.S. Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services should prioritize funding to establish and expand data collection initiatives that characterize the public health nursing workforce needs.
Recommendations from the 17th Annual Report
Recommendation 1
The U.S. Congress, through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, should allocate specific funding to programs that promote an increase in the number of nurse faculty and clinical preceptors, and that support nurse faculty development by incorporating academic coursework in nursing education theory and pedagogy within graduate nursing curricula to prepare nurses to assume teaching positions as either faculty or preceptors upon completion.
Recommendation 2
The U.S. Congress should provide funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration to develop a nurse faculty residency program that emphasizes strategies to improve faculty recruitment, preparation, development, and retention.
Recommendation 3
The U.S. Congress should allocate specific funding for the creation of a national center devoted to nursing education and the development of nurse faculty and clinical preceptors. NACNEP further recommends that the Health Resources and Services Administration lead the implementation of this center as a federal-private partnership, in coordination with professional nursing and non-federal philanthropic organizations. NACNEP envisions that this center would advance nursing education by:
- Developing, supporting, and disseminating best practices in the academic preparation and continuing education needs of qualified nurse educators, nurse faculty, and clinical preceptors;
- Engaging in data collection on nurse faculty, and housing a national repository of information on nurse faculty employment, distribution, and retention;
- Piloting innovative projects to support the development and promote the recruitment and retention a diverse nurse faculty and preceptor workforce;
- Working to improve the image of the nurse faculty role, and raising the visibility of and respect for the nurse faculty role as a rewarding career choice;
- Encouraging and coordinating the development of academic-practice partnerships to support nurse faculty employment and advancement;
- Promoting greater uniformity among state boards of nursing and credentialing bodies in nursing faculty and preceptor requirements, and faculty-to-student and preceptor-to student ratios;
- Developing distance learning infrastructure for nursing education and advancing faculty competencies in the pedagogy of teaching and the evidence-based use of technology, simulation, and distance learning techniques.