PIN POINT. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. An African Proverb

Transcription

1 PIN POINT Volume 4 Number 2 Spring 2012 The Newsletter of Partners Investing in Nursing s Future PartnersInNursing.org If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. An African Proverb On the Road to Exit Strategies I ve been thinking about transitions, retirement and leadership lately. Northwest Health Foundation s founding president, Thomas Aschenbrener, is retiring at the end of June and we are in the process of recruiting a new leader. Over the past 15 years, Thomas has encouraged the Foundation to explore new ways to create positive change in the community. He has been intentional about creating the Foundation s pioneering style of promoting true partnerships with community organizations, funders and others. The PIN collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation would not be here without Thomas support and encouragement; with him we leveraged this small, regional Foundation s vision into a national model of philanthropic partnership. I applaud Thomas for recognizing that the time to leave an organization is when it is doing well and is strong enough to weather the change. When he was asked why he was leaving now, he stated, I am leaving at a time when Northwest Health Foundation has never been stronger. The staff is extremely capable and the board is well poised to succeed with its individual skills, diversity of background, and experience in working collaboratively. His words brought me to think about the need for investment, not just in nursing leadership development, but also in nursing leadership succession. If you enter nursing leadership development into Google, you will receive 15 million hits. There are now nurse leadership and management academies, nursing faculty development programs, nursing leadership theory and frameworks, self-assessment instruments and 360 evaluations, leadership skills lists and leadership discussion groups, books and online modules sprouting up everywhere. In this edition of PIN Point, we highlight the very successful leadership projects in Nebraska, West Virginia and Michigan. Clearly, we know how to make good nurse leaders. Succession management for nurse leadership is less well understood, and retirement decision-making is relegated to discussions of the adequacy of 401(k) plans. Data from a survey commissioned last year by Fidelity Investments show that more than one-quarter of nurses (26 percent) now plan to retire later than they had originally expected, and almost one-quarter (22 percent) plan to work once retired when they had not previously planned to do so. In addition, 42 percent of the nurses surveyed believe they will now never fully retire. While we have been busy developing the new leaders, what have we done to support the current leaders in their planning for retirement or for developing the next phase of their lives? To be sure, many nurses are ambivalent about retiring from the workforce. While the work may be demanding, most nurses feel passionate about delivering good care to their patients, about making a difference, about feeling part of something bigger than themselves. They like the sense of purpose that nursing provides. Maybe they don t want to retire just yet. But of the 3 million nurses in this country, 40 percent are over the age of 50 and 15 percent of them are over the age of 60. Many of them are in management and leadership positions and have been for some time. Many continues on page 2

2 Continued from page 1 of them would like to retire from full-time work. Peter Buerhaus, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, predicts that as the economy recovers (however slowly), nurses who previously delayed retirement will start considering their exit strategies. What will those strategies look like? Perhaps what is missing in our development of new leaders is the other side of the coin. Do we need to help the current leaders get ready to leave by creating programs that encourage them to expand their thinking beyond their current positions, helping them to move on from this meaningful work to the next level? Can we create other supportive roles for the near-retirement nurse, or structure work so that retirement can be redefined, or find ways for nurses to be leaders in the community? Finally, what role should leadership development programs have in assisting current nursing leaders to strategize their exits? Some may disagree with me, but I believe that helping current leaders get ready for their own next phase could be just as important as training the next generation of nurse leaders. Judith Woodruff, JD Director of Workforce Development, Northwest Health Foundation IPE Take the Lead Maryjoan D. Ladden, PhD, RN, FAAN Ladden is a nurse practitioner whose work has focused on improving health care quality and safety through health professional collaboration. She serves as a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, focusing on several critical areas in nursing in New Jersey and nationally. She is also the senior editor for the Foundation s quarterly publication Charting Nursing s Future. There s a lot in the health care news lately about the importance of working in teams. For many of us, the concept of teams is not news. We have been talking about team-based care and the need to prepare health professionals to work in teams since the 1960s. Much of the early work on interprofessional education (IPE) and teams was led by DeWitt (Bud) Baldwin, MD, and Madeline Schmitt, PhD, RN, FAAN. Both Bud and Mattie have been tireless in their advocacy of interprofessional education. Now it s time for us to step up and take a leadership role in IPE. What is IPE and why is it so important? According to the Cochrane Collaborative (1999), IPE is defined as two or more health care professionals learning interactively together for the purposes of improving interprofessional collaboration and/or the health and wellbeing of patients. Research has shown that IPE has improved working culture and patient satisfaction and decreased errors in the emergency department, improved care to domestic violence victims and improved the knowledge and skills of clinicians caring for mental health patients. While more research is needed to determine the right timing and dose of IPE, we know that health professionals need to learn about each other and with each other to be able to collaborate effectively when they get into practice. Given the complexity of care, it takes a team to provide the high-quality, safe, accessible, coordinated care that patients and their families need and deserve. Wherever you live and work, you can take a leadership role in IPE: In Education. The number of schools embracing IPE has grown over the past five years. However, the majority of schools still do not provide the depth of shared learning experiences needed to prepare health professionals to work in a team once they get into practice. Take the lead meet with your medicine, nursing, pharmacy and social work colleagues to talk about what courses you have in common and what IPE would look like on your campus. Even if you are not in an academic health center, you can get the conversation started. In the Community. Advocacy in the media and community organizations can be very effective in moving the IPE agenda forward. Take the lead write an op-ed piece for the local paper, offer a small grant to health professional schools to pilot an IPE activity, partner with health care organizations to identify and promote effective teambased models of care. In Health Care Organizations. Because effective IPE is not the norm, health care organizations and practice sites have to retrain new health professionals in collaboration and teamwork. Take the lead meet with medical and nursing schools to advocate for IPE, offer to share your practice-based curriculum on team training and identify good team-based clinical placements for students. 2

3 2012 PIN Annual Meeting Save the Date We are pleased to announce that the 2012 PIN Annual Meeting, Networking and Peer Learning: It s More Than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, will be held September 5 7, 2012, at the Nines in Portland, Oregon. The PIN Annual Meeting is open to all current and alumni PIN Partners. This year s Annual Meeting will highlight: PIN Partner stories and storytelling experiences Short Talks by PIN Partners and dig deeper opportunities Sustainability workshop and the PIN Sustainability Pilot project experience Facilitated Networking opportunities Poster Session Site visits 1:1 Consulting and Technical Assistance opportunities Dine Arounds Roundtable discussions Current PIN Evaluation findings And, of course, Team Time The goals of the meeting are to ensure that each participant walks away with ❶ a new contact; ❷ a new idea; or ❸ a new skill. The agenda is full of networking and interactive learning opportunities in order to meet your needs and address our other goal: to be the best meeting that you attend in We are very excited about this year s Annual Meeting and hope you will be able to attend. It is designed to challenge your thinking, spark new ideas and make connections with your fellow PIN Partners. Watch the PIN Community wiki s 2012 PIN Annual Meeting page for additional details and registration information as they become finalized. We hope that you will join us in Portlandia, a.k.a. the City of Roses, home of: The smallest city park inside the city limits of any city in the country; Forest Park, the largest urban wilderness in the country; More microbreweries inside a city s limits than any other city in the world; A bike commuter s wonderland; A foodie s mecca; and Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons. Save the Date September 5 7, 2012 the Nines Portland, Oregon 3

4 Partner HighlightS Partner PARTNER HIGHLIGHT: An Interview With Sheri Ryder, BA, Senior Program Officer, the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation and Cynthia Persily, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor and Associate Dean, Academic Affairs, Southern Region Programs, West Virginia University School of Nursing Sheri Ryder, BA Sheri Ryder and Cynthia Persily are driving forces behind the West Virginia Nursing Leadership Institute Team Development Program, which increases the leadership skills and effectiveness of nursing teams from health care organizations throughout the state. Why does your organization see nursing leadership as an area worthy of investment? Sheri Ryder: The foundation has six issue areas: education, arts and culture, health, human services, recreation, and land use. Even though we have money that goes into the health field, it generally has not been in leadership initiatives. Not that we are averse to it, but funding for leadership in the health arena is not typical of a health care proposal. And I don t feel that the foundation understood at the time the need for leadership training and how it can move a health care organization forward and change the organizational culture. We did know Cynthia, whom we consider a very strong leader a real sparkplug in the health care community. She had come to the foundation before with a proposal for individual leadership training, which the foundation supported. When she later shifted the focus to team leadership training, PIN signed on and the foundation became more involved. It was the foundation s belief in strong community leadership, more than a focus on health care, that made the foundation agree to take the lead on this PIN initiative. It took a strong advocate like Cynthia to engage the foundation and help us feel comfortable taking a lead role in an area where we don t have a large amount of expertise. It took a lot of trust in all of the partners involved. Why is creating nurse leaders so important? Sheri Ryder: The ability of nurses to lead an organization, and to elevate their own skills, is important for self-motivation, employment motivation and the bottom line improving community health. The stronger our people are and the stronger our organizations are, the better our communities are served. In hospitals, the power structure can be upside down, where people on the ground can have the opportunity to impact decision-making on a day-to-day basis. Cynthia Persily: Nursing leadership has tremendous potential to impact every level of the health care organization from direct patient care to organizational design to the development of health care policy. At a basic level, research has documented that nurses don t leave organizations, they leave those who are leading the organization including managers. Investment in leadership skills is a practical business decision in this case, increasing retention of talented nursing staff, improving care delivery and reducing costs. On a broader level, and especially related to teams and leadership, highly functioning teams in health care have been documented to improve patient care quality, increase patient safety, improve patient outcomes, improve staff retention and cohesion, and improve job satisfaction. Finally, investment in the development of leadership skills is essential so that nurses can bring their knowledge and insights to the table in designing a health care system for the future. What is the biggest benefit to having nurse leaders in an organization? Cynthia Persily: Organizations benefit from leaders with the ability to think strategically, to be willing to innovate, even if that means potential failure. We don t solve tomorrow s problems with yesterday s thinking! 4

5 HighlightS Partner highlight How do you know that your Team Development Program has made a difference? Cynthia Persily: It can be a challenge. In our program, teams lead projects at the organizational level, and those projects are easier to evaluate in terms of return on investment. Our final report to PIN documented some pretty amazing returns in the short term from the projects led by nurses. Both the projects and the team development have a significant positive fiscal impact on organizations, although evaluation of just the team development competencies and their return on investment is a bit more difficult. Your program utilized MBA students. Tell us more about that experience and how it worked. Cynthia Persily: The University of Charleston has an Executive MBA program that is very application-oriented. Upon entering the program, students are broken into teams and assigned to a local company, program or enterprise to solve problems. Our assigned team was charged with developing a business model for sustainability of the program, and a return-on-investment model to document the value of the program. They did an extremely thorough evaluation, including an industry and market analysis, a competitive strength assessment, a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis, internal and external factor evaluations, a five-force model analysis, a functional analysis and a financial analysis. They developed four groups of recommendations for sustainability, including new funding streams, new product lines, a tuition model and a hybrid model for the future. The partnership will be evaluating these models as we move forward. What have you learned from your project that can be shared with others? Sheri Ryder: We didn t realize how much work would be involved as the lead foundation. Especially in the beginning, when we were building relationships with our partners, there were lots of s, information requests and conferences. We have a small staff, and the project simply took up a lot of time connecting people, making sure reports were done, going to meetings. It definitely took some getting used to. But as the project progressed, it either got easier or there was less work. Probably both. And as we watched the project grow and saw the community interaction, we were amazed. We came to understand the need for health care leadership from the nurses themselves in a way that we never would have if we had not gotten involved in the project. Cynthia Persily: There are several things we ve learned that I would emphasize: Ideas for solutions to problems in health care organizations were seeded at other organizations as a result of the learning community established in our program. Teams learned from each other; strategies to facilitate learning from one another should be supported. Learning collaboratives are developed not only across teams, but across cohorts and across sponsors as the alumni network grows statewide. Sponsors value the statewide network. Momentum for team leadership development in organizations is built through projects. As projects are disseminated throughout an organization, more nurse leaders begin to desire participation in the program. Leadership and teaming translates beyond the walls of the institution to the community. Cynthia Persily, PhD, RN, FAAN >> Teams learned from each other; strategies to facilitate learning from one another should be supported. Cynthia Persily 5

6 Partner HighlightS Partner PARTNER HIGHLIGHT: An Interview With Elizabeth Sullivan, MPA, Vice President, Community Investment, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and Carole Stacy, MA, MSN, RN, Director, Michigan Center for Nursing Elizabeth Sullivan and Carole Stacy helm the Leading Toward Tomorrow Project, which cultivates nurse leaders in southeast Michigan, with a primary focus on geriatric care. Why does your organization see nursing leadership as an area worthy of investment? Elizabeth Sullivan: We felt it was important to build the nursing workforce and to do it in a way, in this particular project, that supports retention and mobility of nurses. We knew that the need was significant in southeast Michigan, and we knew it was important to do this with nurses in acute and long-term care settings. Our interest was working with novice nurses who found themselves in management positions and were working in care settings that serve a lot of older adults. Carole Stacy: On one of our nursing surveys several years ago, one of the questions was: If you ve left a nursing job in the last two years, what was the reason? One of the answers they could select was that they had difficulty with their nurse manager or with administration. Over the course of several surveys, we kept seeing that particular response chosen in large numbers. Then we really started going out and looking at what the problem was. We found that in Michigan, we do not do a very good job of preparing people to be in nursing management. Just because they re a good nurse, we assume they ll have the skills needed to be a good manager. And that s frequently not the case. What advice would you give to others looking at leadership development? Elizabeth Sullivan: Find the right partner. The Community Foundation knew that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, PIN and the Northwest Health Foundation had this funding opportunity. We knew we had nursing workforce issues in southeast Michigan. And we knew that working with an older adult population was a significant issue for nurses in southeast Michigan. But we didn t put those pieces together as We need a nursing leadership development program. It was going to the right partner, and our partner saying, You know what? We ve done some research, and we have a survey, and we think this is an approach that has merit. What is the difference between a nurse leader and a nurse manager? Carole Stacy: The thing that we try to get across is that every nurse is a leader, either in a formal or informal role. That s a difficult idea for many nurses to grasp. Every nurse is an advocate, and being an advocate is a very important part of being a leader. They all advocate for their patients. I always say that if you re in any kind of situation where you need to figure out what needs to be done, if you have about four nurses together, you can figure it out, because they are very action-oriented. One of the 6

7 HighlightS Partner highlight big things is getting all nurses to see themselves as having leadership qualities, and getting nurse managers to foster that in the people they re working with. What characteristics have you identified that can make a good nurse leader? Carole Stacy: People often think that to be a leader, you re the one that has to come up with all the ideas. It s important for us to show the people in our program that it s not that they have to come up with all the ideas, but that they have to encourage creativity and innovation in the people they supervise and show them that their opinions and their work are valued. How do you know that your training efforts have made a difference? Carole Stacy: We re getting feedback from employers who are saying they re amazed at the difference in the nurses. We had three nurses from one system, and their chief nursing officer called me after a meeting and said, I have to tell you, these are three people who ve never really spoken up before, and their hands were up all the time. So it s great to sense the excitement of them sharing what they re learning and feeling more comfortable in a leadership role. What have you learned from your project that can be shared with others? Elizabeth Sullivan: For the Community Foundation, the project has opened doors to addressing workforce needs in our community and caused us to look a little differently at health care. Health care funders focus largely on access to health care, and we re looking at workforce issues, as well as programs that help build the availability of health care in the community. The other piece of it for the Community Foundation is the opportunity to work with a new partner, the Michigan Center for Nursing, which opens doors to state issues related to the nursing workforce and nursing education. It s been incredibly educational, opening our eyes to issues that we had not been involved in before this effort. Your project focuses on acute and long-term care nurses. Are there differences or similarities in leadership development for those environments? Elizabeth Sullivan: The need is there for both. One of the challenges is that it s more difficult for long-term care facilities to release nurses for training. We need to get greater buy-in from the longterm care sector. Carole Stacy: Long-term care is a different environment to work in, and a lot of times, those nurses see themselves as second-class. They don t feel equal to nurses who work in, say, acute care, coronary care or ICU. So we have the acute and long-term care nurses in the same group, because we want them to recognize the role that each of them plays in the care of patients. And they find that the problems they re experiencing are the same. At some point, we may want to do something a little different for the long-term care nurses that s geared toward the fact that they re often working with staff who don t have as high an educational level, whereas acute care nurses work more frequently with certified professionals. >> We knew that the need was significant in southeast Michigan, and we knew it was important to do this with nurses in acute and long-term care settings. Elizabeth Sullivan >> The thing that we try to get across is that every nurse is a leader, either in a formal or informal role. Carole Stacy 7

8 Partner HighlightS Partner >>There are several measurements that validate investing in nurse leaders, including turnover, quality care measurements, customer satisfaction and strong financial results. Shari Terry To see the Institute of Medicine recommendations, visit To read the entire interviews with all three PIN partnerships, visit the PIN Community wiki at wiki.partnersinnursing.org and go to Partners in Nursing > PIN Business > Communications/PR > PIN Point. PARTNER HIGHLIGHT: An Interview With Glenn Van Ekeren, BA, President, Vetter Health Services, Mary Cramer, RN, PhD, APHN-BC, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Community-Based Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing and Shari Terry, RN, BSN, NHA, Operations Coordinator, Vetter Health Services Glenn Van Ekeren and Mary Cramer lead the Midwest Geriatric Nursing Quality Improvement program, and Shari Terry served as president of its Leadership Academy. The program focuses on boosting the caliber of geriatric nursing care and leadership through education, ongoing professional development, and rewards and recognition at a systems level. Vetter Health Services owns and operates 32 long-term care (LTC) facilities, which are located in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Wyoming. The program also included three other LTC systems: Nye Senior Services, St. Jane de Chantal Long Term Care Services and Golden Living. What characteristics have you identified that can make a good nurse leader? Shari Terry: A good leader teaches and demonstrates best practices and theory while mentoring others to follow. They need to have integrity, a desire for continued education and to help others grow, good organizational skills, and the ability to follow through. What is the biggest challenge in training a nurse to be a leader? Glenn Van Ekeren: Overcoming preconceived ideas of what constitutes good leadership, minimizing attitudes learned from bad leaders, lack of desire to deal with people issues, and required responsibilities outside their talents and interests. Mary Cramer: Nurses are care providers and often focused on individual patient care. Many go into nursing to take care of patients, not be a formal leader. The challenge is to help nurses see that leader isn t necessarily a formal position. It is more often an informal role. As a nurse educator, I believe we need to follow the Institute of Medicine recommendations and make sure that we infuse leadership throughout the entire undergraduate curriculum for RNs, to help them see leadership as inherent to their professional role and essential to the goal of improved quality care. How do you know that your efforts have made a difference? Mary Cramer: We looked at RN turnover rates and we used the intent to remain instrument to measure this outcome. We found statistically significant improvements for intent to remain among the RNs who took our Nurse Executive course and became nationally certified. If you consider that the cost of replacing one RN in a hospital setting is around $68,000, then it doesn t take long to see the benefit of investing upfront in nurses education. Shari Terry: There are several measurements that validate investing in nurse leaders, including turnover, quality care measurements, customer satisfaction and strong financial results. We know when we do well by comparing similar data to other health care organizations. 8

9 HighlightS Partner highlight What have you learned from your project that can be shared with others? Mary Cramer: We have learned that giving RNs the educational preparation for quality clinical geriatric care and geriatric leadership is powerful. Our program provided RN managers and administrators in LTC an online course that prepared them for the Nurse Executive certification exam through the American Nurses Credentialing Center, for BSNs, and Nurse Leader certification through the American Association for Long Term Care Nursing. Among the nurses who took our course and went on to become certified, there were statistically significant improvements in general job satisfaction, psychological empowerment and competency management. We also found a statistically significant improvement in intent to remain. Shari Terry: Involvement in the project was far more time-consuming than I would have expected. The investment that the partners made must have been based somewhat on faith and love for the profession. There was a huge commitment not just in hard cash, but in tools and time afforded to the participants. Although the project is completed, our company continues to invest in sustaining the gains. It seems as though the deeper the project went, the stronger the commitment became. What advice would you give to others looking at leadership development? Mary Cramer: Providing the education is just the first step. After that, we need to help our nurse leaders maintain their competency through access to resources, mentoring and professional networks. Aspects of the Leadership Academy a website, conferences and workshops, awards for outstanding leadership were tremendously helpful to sustain a sense of accomplishment and interest in ongoing professional development. Do you find that leadership is an innate quality, or can it be learned? Glenn Van Ekeren: Leadership can be learned, but there are people with a greater inclination toward it. Mary Cramer: I think that certain people are naturally drawn to leadership opportunities, but they may or may not have the skills to be effective. Giving people who are in, or aspire to, leadership positions the education, mentoring and resources they need can make them more effective. That said, leaders are always growing and seeking to improve in new areas. Leadership is dynamic, never static. Shari Terry: I find that leadership is innate, but education and experience can strengthen it. What are your plans for sustainability for this project? Glenn Van Ekeren: We ve made a solid commitment specifically to the gerontology side of the training. We will encourage new nurses to get certified and support those who continue to gain new knowledge and expertise through ongoing education. Mary Cramer: The University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing has partnered with the American Health Care Association for sustainability of Gero Nurse Prep, a course that prepares RNs for the American Nurses Credentialing Center s gerontological certification exam. The course is now offered online. Also, our program s Leadership Academy was accepted by the National Gerontological Nurses Association as a special interest group. Many of our nurses are involved in the association, including Shari. Glenn Van Ekeren, BA Mary Cramer, RN, PhD, APHN-BC Shari Terry, RN, BSN, NHA Gero Nurse Prep is online: GeroNursePrep/Pages/default.aspx 9

10 Are You LinkedIn to the PIN Group? In the interest of setting up a sustainable communication network that will last beyond the official PIN program, we have created a LinkedIn group for PIN. Joining PIN s LinkedIn group will allow you the opportunity to communicate with other PIN Partners by posting topics or questions for discussion with the group and/or to participate in discussions initiated by your peers in the PIN network. If you are interested and already have a LinkedIn profile and account, we encourage you to join the group! Go to the Groups tab at the top of the page and when the search box opens on the left, type in PIN and select networking group on the line below. (Look for the PIN kite logo! There are many PINs to choose from.) Next, select the Join group button on the right. PIN staff will then approve you ; we have created a closed group, which means that it is limited to just PIN Partners. If you are interested and do have not a LinkedIn profile and account, this will require you to join and set up a profile (which is free). Please go to linkedin.com to do this. Once you have a profile, follow the instructions above. To learn more about LinkedIn and/or for help using the site, visit learn.linkedin.com. (continues next page, in blue sidebar >>) Nursing Leadership and Advocacy in Philanthropy Phyllis D. Meadows, PhD, MSN, RN Meadows is a PIN National Advisory Committee member and has a career that spans over 30 years in the areas of nursing, public health, academia and philanthropy. She is a senior fellow in the Health Program at the Kresge Foundation and the associate dean for practice at the University of Michigan s School of Public Health. Nursing leadership and advocacy is an imperative in all health sectors, and should be considered as more than an option, but a valuable resource in nontraditional settings such as philanthropy. Over the last several decades, nurses have made significant inroads into the philanthropic sector, providing leadership in the design and implementation of health programming within public and private foundations. Whether working in public or private foundations, nurses have and continue to bring the nursing perspective a point of view that is uniquely positioned to advance the quality of health investments and programming. There are many competing forces that tend to dominate the conceptual development of funding initiatives focusing on health. Historically, frameworks emerging from the medical model have heavily dominated the efforts of foundations. While the medical model is not a completely problematic lens through which to target investments, nursing is often subsumed or hidden in this and similar frameworks such as those guiding public health investments. Additionally, the value-added perspective of nursing and the unique contributions of the nursing profession and its goals are often overshadowed by the systems, structures and policies impacting the delivery of health care. Nursing leaders and nursing advocates in philanthropy have a responsibility to expand the dialogue, and to redirect health programming and investments to ensure improved health outcomes. Nurses can fulfill this role by actively seeking opportunities to establish a leadership voice in the philanthropic sector. This involves building the skills, expertise, capacity and networks to effectively engage the foundation community. A significant first step involves the willingness of nursing leaders to step outside of their traditional professional settings and contribute voluntary and expert services to the nongovernmental or nonprofit sector. This can be achieved by participating in the range of professional activities that facilitate more depth in understanding the broad multi-sector influences on health and health care. Historically, nurses have and continue to play a significant leadership role in philanthropy. In addition, the profession has benefited from program staff who have assumed an advocacy role for the profession. Although there are a number of public and private foundations dedicated to investing specifically in the nursing profession, many others subsume nursing-related expenditures within a larger health program or initiative. Regardless of the foundation s investment interests, there are three essential focal areas for nursing leaders 10

11 or advocates working in philanthropy: First is to ensure that the unique elements of the profession are highlighted and distinguished from any other health profession. In philanthropic settings where nursing is not a specific area of investment, there is a tendency to displace or collapse the profession under the broad domain of health provider. While not totally inaccurate, the term generally conjures images of physicians, and under the best circumstances it may include advanced nurse practitioners. It is important to identify and capture the distinctive role(s) of nursing as the major provider of health care services in this country. Gentle and sometimes forceful reminders of the sole contributions and impacts of nursing can be useful be guiding philanthropic investments. Second, nurses in philanthropy should actively participate in reframing the discourse about health and health care. This involves the active participation in non-nursing-driven discussions about health and emerging health issues. A specific purpose is to bring forward the nursing perspective to shape our understanding of current health issues and the impact of policy. Foundations are widely known and accepted in their convening roles and are resourced to draw from the best experts in the health field. Nurses and advocates should also use the convening role embraced by philanthropy, to provide facilitated, nurse-led conversations on health, in strategic partnership with others outside the field. Finally, the most important role for nursing leadership for philanthropy is to foster an ongoing commitment to improving the health of the client/health consumer. Regardless of the setting, nurses are still expected to be the principal advocate for health improvement and quality. This extends to the clients who are the focus of programs, and to the professionals implementing funded projects. Whether for individual clients, special groups or populations, nursing leaders are unofficially charged with ensuring that philanthropic efforts do no harm, or hinder the well-being of those targeted for the investments. As programs within foundations are designed and implemented, it is essential that nurses work to keep the health improvement of individuals and populations at the center of philanthropic efforts. The nursing perspective is essential in foundations working to shape and organize health investments. Nurses assuming roles within the philanthropic sector should consider entering the field with a grounded understanding of the profession within the context of the nation s health. Efforts should be undertaken to build broad knowledge and networks within and outside the nursing field, in order to enhance effectiveness in the design and support of health programs. Leadership and advocacy within philanthropy should be purposeful and focused. The goal is to ensure that the nursing perspective for clients, and nursing itself, are brought to the forefront of discussions and programming. Our leadership and advocacy imperative is to improve health and health outcomes it is why we exist. (<< continued from previous page) Once you have joined the PIN LinkedIn group, you will want to adjust your settings to receive communications (or not) about the group s activity. To do this: Go to the PIN group in your profile. Select More and then Your Settings. In Contact Settings select the option(s) that you prefer to receive communications about the group s activity: to receive an about each new discussion, or to receive a daily or weekly digest (by ) of all activity. You can select one, all or nothing. Also (in this same section), don t forget to select the address to use when receiving the above communications. We encourage you and your PIN Partners to join the PIN group on LinkedIn, but we also want to stress that this activity is OPTIONAL. PIN staff regularly receive phone calls and/or s from PIN Partners with questions or discussion topics that can and should be shared with the entire PIN network. While we encourage you to continue to use and see us as a resource, we also want to provide you access to your peers who are also a great (if not better) resource. We hope that the PIN group will provide you the opportunity to reach out to PIN Partners as often as possible to share your questions, learnings and experiences from your PIN partnerships. Please contact Renee at renee@nwhf.org or Jennifer at jennifer@nwhf.org if you have questions or concerns. 11

12 Key Dates MAY 2012 National Nurses Week May 6 12, 2012 Cleveland Clinic Nursing Research and Innovations 8th Annual Nursing Research Conference: Illuminating the Way (Cleveland, Ohio) May 7 8, 2012 National Conference for Nurse Practitioners (Lake Buena Vista, Florida) May 16 19, 2012 Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research (WISER) 5th Annual WISER Symposium on Nursing Simulation (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) May 24 25, 2012 JUNE 2012 Nursing Economic$ presents the 5th Nursing Economic$ Summit (Washington, D.C. ) June 6 8, 2012 American Holistic Nurses Association s 32nd Annual Conference: Holistic Nurses: Catalysts for Conscious Change (Snowbird, Utah) June 13 16, ANA Healthy Nurse Conference (Washington, D.C.) June 14, 2012 Sigma Theta Tau International and the National League for Nursing present Nursing Education Research Conference 2012: Innovations in Nursing Education Research (Indianapolis, Indiana) June 15 16, 2012 Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees 2012 National Convening: Global Trends, National Implications, Local Innovations (Portland, Oregon) June 13 15, 2012 Keeping Up the Good Work: Sustainability Technical Assistance APPLICationS DUE May 15, 2012 On May 1, the PIN team will launch an opportunity for some of you to participate in a pilot program to receive technical assistance for sustainability, Keeping Up the Good Work. The pilot opportunity will take place throughout the summer and early fall and will include some group telephone discussions, 1:1 coaching, and a oneday seminar to help you assess your sustainability planning to date and improve your capacity for sustainability planning in the future. Because this is a pilot, there is an application process to participate. We hope to select six PIN partnerships this year. The application will be available on May 1 through the PIN Community wiki, and the deadline is May 15, Feel free to contact Renee at renee@nwhf.org or Jennifer at jennifer@nwhf.org if you have questions. The Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers: Taking the Long View: Visions of the Future (Indianapolis, Indiana) June 27 28, 2012 JULY th National Association of Hispanic Nurses Annual Conference: Healthcare Reform: Mentoring the Next Generation of Nursing Leaders (San Juan, Puerto Rico) July 17 20, 2012 National Black Nurses Association 40th Annual Institute and Conference: The Politics of Health Care: The Role and Responsibility of Nursing (Orlando, Florida) July 25-29, 2012 PartnersInNursing.org