Nursing Quarterly Fall 2009

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Guest columnistDonna L. Boland,RN, PhD, is the associate dean for On the Pulse
evaluation at the Indiana University School of Nursing, president of the Indiana
Nursing Workforce Development Coalition and apast chair of Indiana Deans
and Directors.
Complexitiesofthenursingshortage
■ In Indiana, approximately 2,500 qualiﬁed students ayear are not able to gain
admission to nursing schools,due in large part to alack of qualiﬁed faculty.
The annual survey of schools of nursing
conducted by the Indiana Nursing
Workforce Development Coalitionindicates
that 40 facultypositions
went unﬁlled in the 2009
academic year.
To accommodate more
students,we need to ﬁll
facultyvacancies,create
additional facultypositions
Boland and preparenurses for
facultyroles to replace the 59 percent of the
current facultywho willreachretirement age
in the next 10 years.
These ﬁgures areimportant to know
because Indiana is experiencing and will
continue to face anursing shortage.The yk
current shortage has been attributed to Lebr
an aging workforce,anaging population Marc
facing increasinglycomplex chronic health
Photo:challenges that requiremoresophisticated
Linda KayFluharty,RNC, MSN, (left) has taken on the challengeofteaching the next generation of nurses at Ivycare and an inabilitytoeducate the projected
Tech Community College.number of nurses needed to meet the
growing complexityofhealth challenges clinical experts and members of teaching
over the next decade. teams to provide students with educational
Some argue that lowering faculty experiences that preparethem to functionin
qualiﬁcations willenable schools to enroll complex environments.
morestudents.Yetit’sdifﬁcult to imagine The Indiana NursingWorkforce
that other health professions —like Development Coalitionhas been working to
medicine or physical therapy,whichalso face collect,analyzeand distribute information
shortages —would adopt suchastrategy. regarding the supplyofand demand for
The competencies needed by facultyto nurses,especiallyfor appropriatelyprepared
educate nurses to functioninaknowledge- nurse faculty. We must ﬁnd waysto increase
richenvironment aregrowing exponentially. the number of nurse facultypositions in the
To lower educational and experiential state and grow the pool of eligible nurses
standards ultimatelywould compromise to ﬁllthese positions.Without addressing
nurses’abilities to provide evidence-based, this bottleneck,we willbeunable to increase
cost-effective,state-of-the-artcare. enrollments large enough and quickly
Indiana nursing schools havecreated enough to meet the projected nursing
innovativepartnerships that allowthem not shortage.
onlyto maintain maximum enrollments, To this end,we must ﬁnd waysto support
but also to modestlyincrease them despite nurses seeking master’s and doctoral degrees,
shrinking ﬁnancial,clinical and faculty adequatelycompensate those in nurse
resources.Schools havedeveloped more educator roles and exploreeducational
than 200 partnerships with practice models that achieve learning outcomes while
agencies and practicing nurses,whichhave reducing educational costs.Hoosiers deserve
augmented teaching resources.Nurses in qualityhealth care delivered by highly
practice settings areserving as preceptors, educated professional nurses.●
1ST Indiana Nursing Quarterly •indystar.com/INQ •Fall 2009 7
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