Surgery Institute of Medicine IOM

Four key messages:

  • Nurses should practice to the full extent of their education and training.
  • Nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression.
  • Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health professionals, in redesigning health care in the United States.
  • Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and an improved information infrastructure.

Eight recommendations:

  • Recommendation 1: Remove scope-of-practice barriers.
  • Recommendation 2: Expand opportunities for nurses to lead and diffuse collaborative improvement efforts.
  • Recommendation 3: Implement nurse residency programs.
  • Recommendation 4: Increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80 percent by 2020.
  • Recommendation 5: Double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020.
  • Recommendation 6: Ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning.
  • Recommendation 7: Prepare and enable nurses to lead change to advance health.
  • Recommendation 8: Build an infrastructure for the collection and analysis of interprofessional health care workforce data.