The critical issue of expanding nursing education capacity - including faculty, clinical resources, and physical space - to enroll and educate the numbers of students needed to meet future nursing demands will be addressed at the national Nursing Education Capacity Summit on June 26-27, 2008, organized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration; the Center to Champion Nursing in America; and the US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration.
As the CEO of the NLN, the association that represents nurse faculty from all types of nursing education programs, Dr. Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, is well chosen to address this forum
where state teams will share best practices, consult with experts, learn about innovative strategies, and develop and refine their own plans to effectively expand nursing education
capacity. Teams will benefit from the experience of their peers and the perspectives of experts in the field.
"The Educator, the Educated, and Nursing Education" will describe tranformative strategies, such as: decreasing the time between licensure and the next degree through intense incubator
learning experiences that provide a bridge from one degree to the next; and changing the faculty message about clinical practice before a nurse may proceed to master's or doctoral
preparation. Dr. Malone will also discuss how the use of simulation in nursing education can alleviate some of the capacity problems endemic to our health care system.
In a preview of her address, Dr. Malone stated, "Cost and resistance to transformation are challenges we have to confront, as are public policy and political issues. It is imperative to
find a way to adequately fund nurse faculty development and nurse workforce development programs."
For interview opportunities with Dr. Malone, please contact NLN chief communications officer Karen R. Klestzick at 212-812-0376, kklestzick @ nln.org.
Dedicated to excellence in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the premier organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education offering faculty development, networking
opportunities, testing and assessment, nursing research grants, and public policy initiatives to its 27,000 individual and 1,200 institutional members.