Nursing Reinvestment Act
Introduction
The Nurse Reinvestment act was passed in 2002 with the hope that it would solve the contemporary problem of the nursing shortage in the country. The bill was signed in August1 2002 by President Bush. This act aimed at increasing the number of nurses working in various health facilities in the country by providing nurses with the basic skills required in providing health care services to patients. This therefore means that the legislation was meant to bring positive results to the nurses and to the patients as well by ensuring that the health care system is functioning optimally.
Despite the signing of the Act by President Bush, the major question is how the healthcare industry will be helped by the federal government in reversing the issue of nursing shortage seen nationwide. Some of the hospital facilities have seen the Act will work in their favor while others view it otherwise. Hospitals which had investment millions of their funds in retaining and attracting nurses welcomed the new legislation but indicated that despite its advantages it could have come earlier.
The passing of the act also did not mean undertaking drastic changes in the creation of new incentive programs but had to spend a longer duration of time in persuading the Congress to provide enough funds. Despite the hospitals, nurse associations and other healthcare providers lobbying heavily for the passing of this legislation as a way of combating the challenge of nurse shortage, some of the unions had warned that the law is not sufficient in improving the condition of the workforce in an adequate way (Berens, 2000).
Overview of the Nursing Reinvestment Act
The 107th congress in 2002 passed the landmark legislation known as the Nurse Reinvestment Act, P. L. 107-205. This paper will present a critical analysis to the provisions of the P.L 107-205 within the contemporary shortage of nurses and the current literature written on the subject. The major question which this paper tries to answer is. What is the impact of the Act to nurses especially on the concern of their career development? My argument is that nurses should be well conversant with the requirement of the Nurses reinvestment Act in order for them to develop their careers. The format of this paper will be examining this act title after tile and by each section which present the congress plan in addressing the two major areas of shortage which are the Nurse Retention, Title II and the Nurse Recruitment, Title I.
The Nurse Retention section which is the section 101 under title 1gives a definition of terms used in public law. The second section is on Public Health Service Announcement and how to develop the area of nursing profession. The last section gives the establishment of the National Corpse service as the first title. The other titles are on nurse retention which includes retaining quality nurses and building towards career development. Section 2020 touches on the development and encouragement of the comprehensive Geriatric Education. The subsequent section is about establishing a program on Nurse Faculty Loan and section n 204 is on reports mandating by the General Accounting Office.
The Bill that would one day become reality was adjourned by the 107th Congress in November 2002. The direction to members of the congress was provided by the websites for the national league for nurses (www.nln.org), the American Nurses Association (www.nursing world.org, the specialty of Nursing Organizations (www.aspanlorg/Spec)andThe American Association of Colleges of nursing (www.aacn.org). Nurses had to align themselves with the various groups which support the legislation due to the importance of the Nurse Reinvestment.
The achievements of the act
The law according to Meredith, (2002) is a major step in addressing the issue of improving patient care and to address the nursing shortage in the country which is worsening. The main purpose of the nurse reinvestment act is to provide nurses with scholarships, grants on patient safety, ensure nurse retention ad for offering a comprehensive geriatric training for all nurses. Other aspects which the act addresses are the provisions of career development grant program, of loan cancellation program and public service announcement (Meredith 2002).
Scholarships the nursing scholarships are meant to provide educations scholarships as a form of absorbing and retaining the nursing staff to serve in various private and public health care facilities so as to eliminate the crucial problems of nurse shortage. The longer the period the will be in the nursing file will determine the extent of assistance they will receive in their education. Patient safety and nurse retention enhancement grants are meant to assist the health care facilities to improve the delivery of care and to retain nurses through more interrelationships between other health care professionals and the nurses. This will also help nurses to be incorporated into the decision making process.
The comprehensive training and education grants provided resources for individuals in their training and education on geriatric care for the older adults. These resources are to be used in the curriculum development and distribution, for continuing education and classes and for faculty development (Donley, et al. 2002).
The loan cancellation program is a faculty dealing with the cancellation of loan borrowed by the nurses so as to allow them to have rapid completion of their courses and a full time to study without any financial challenges and to reach the advanced degree studies levels. Prior to the cancellation of an individual loan the recipient has to take a specific period of time in a position within the faculty of a nursing school. Individuals are also assisted by the career ladder program to establish partnership between the School of Nursing for advanced training and the health care providers and to with the nursing workforces in gaining more education. These strategies are meant for retaining the workforce and to demonstrate to the potential nurses to be that the profession in an upward moving career (Meredith, 2000).
The public services announcement will work to promote and advertise the nursing profession and to educate the members of public about the nursing career rewards. It will also function in changing the stereotype people have concerning the nursing career and to let the public know about the various assistance which is available to individuals interested in joining the nursing career.
There is a great e impact which this legislation has had to the filed of nursing in this country. The Act has made it possible for new students to be recruited in various American Nursing programs through the finding provided by the local and national public service announcements which have enhanced positive profiling of the profession of nursing and has since then encouraged many student to be committed and to join the career of nursing.
The act has also succeeded in reinvesting in nurses who were already in the career through giving them a chance to learn advanced training and to join various upper education programs which makes them to step higher in their career and generally to improve the quality of health care services they provide to the health care centers or facilities they are working in.
The Act has worked towards ensuring that nurses are able to enroll in higher degrees of PhD in nursing from the B.S in nursing which most of them only had. The programs under this act has also managed to place nurses in residencies and in internships where they can gain unique and specialized training on clinical matters which will make them respond well to the complex needs of health services in their day to day interaction with the patients(Berens, 2000).
The nation in the 21st century has seen a rapid population growth of the elderly Americans who belong to the Baby Boom generation. The Act has enabled nurses to be educated in skills for caring and providing for the needs of these elderly adults through the provision of geriatrics a program. The Reinvestment Act is credited for developing the National Nurse Service Corps (NNSC) which works in administering scholarships to students and to repay their loans. These students are those who are committed in the nursing career and to work in the heath care facilities which are experiencing a shortage of nurses (Donley, 2002).
The NNSC has made a major landmark in the American history by nursing that the rural, urban and the urban community health facilities which were turning away patients due to a shortage of nursing staff could now be well staffed. The NNSC has managed to send qualified nurses in such facilities to provide and serve the needs of the patients and with the high quality services they deserve (Staiger, Auerback, & Buerhaus, 2000).
Quality health care has been improved since the passing of the Act in 2002. First the act has ensured that more nurses are available through training and education them with scholarships. This will mean that every patient will be able to be served by a nurse appropriately (Fitch Ratings 2003).
The American health care system assumes that it provides enough and high quality services to patient but the real thing is that the system is plagued by the shortage of nursing work force. This shortage is characterized by two main aspects. The older nurses are retiring and yet very few nursing schools in the country are receiving very low rate of enrollment. From 1997 to 2002, the rate of enrolment in nursing programs had declined by a rate of 20%. This is because the graduates from other filed were lured into new forms of careers in the modern technological and scientifically advanced economic world and this has many of them to abandon the filed of nursing which most of them had initially opted for.
This has made the nursing workforce to only have 10 percent of them who are below the age of thirty. Fitch (2003|) predicted that by 2010, the nursing workforce will have 40 % of nurses above the age of 50 and most of them will, be on their way to retirement. (Fitch, 2003). This scary prediction called for immediate intervention to reverse the course of things because the shortage of nurses yet they are more needed than before in providing the needs of baby boomers who millions of them have enrolled in Medicare programs.
The Nurse Reinvestment Act aimed at enrolling new nurses in various medical health facilities and to increase the general number of nurses in the country. The act also aimed at improving the skills of nurses in order for them to provide high quality care to patients and generally making the health care system of American to be the best in the whole world. Despite the fact that nurse unions claim that the legislation does not tackle the issue of nurse retention, the healthcare providers indicate that the legislation has done a good job in addressing the main elements which address the issue of nurse shortage such as advancement in opportunities, lack of autonomy, faculty shortage, and the negative perception individuals have concerning the nursing career.
These provisions are encouraging but the legislation could work for the benefit of the hospital by opening doors for more funding beyond what the senate had proposed. A senor director of the American Hospital Association, Mr. Carl Luggeiero who deals with federal relations says that “It allows a flexibility that really wasn’t there when there was a set amount,”(Luggeiero, 2000).
The question on how much the funding from the federal government also brings forth various disagreements among the health care communities. There is an estimation ranging from $135 million to $250 million per year and with much addition of funds, then it will be possible to achieve the needed target of adding more nurses to the advantage of the hospitals. The healthcare providers have also wondered on how they would benefit from the legislature especially on supplementing the recruitment programs for nurses as an immediate strategy of responding to the law. Since the implementation of the law in 2002, the various hospitals are still exercising shortage of nurses mainly due to the increased number of baby boomers in the country.
This puts across the question on whether the policy was successful or not and if successful was it rather a too late policy which showed have been done much earlier. The second question is most relevant to this study because it is true that the Nurse investment Act has managed to ensure nurses are retained and are sufficient but many of the prospective nurses could still be undertaking their degree or advanced courses in nursing. So despite the delay in predicting the need of more nurses by 2002, it would have been much better if the policy would have been passed earlier than this (Tri-Council for Nursing 2001).
Conclusion
The P.L. 107-205, was passed by the United States congress to address the issue of nursing shortage in the country. The policy is effective in addressing the health care challenges of the 21st century through funding for nurses education, cancellation of loans and equipping the nurses through training programs in order for them to provide high quality health care services to patients. The aged are also left out in the programs. Despite the delay in passing the policy the legislation will still catch-up with the shortcomings and to offer nurses a better time to study and encourage new ones for the sake of improving the overall quality of the health care services to the young and old generation in America.
Reference
Donley, S.R., Flaherty, S.M.J., Sarsfield, E., Taylor, L., Maloni, H., Flanagan, E. (2002,). What does the nurse reinvestment act mean to you? Nursing World. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/ojin/topic14
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Fitch Ratings. (2003). Nursing Shortage Update. Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.fitchratings.com/dtp/pdf2-03/hnur0512.pdf.
Meredith, P. (2002). The nurse reinvestment act help is on the way! Nursing Spectrum. Retrieved from http://community.nursingspectrum.com/MagazineArticles/article.cfm
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American Hospital Association (AHA) Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems. (2002l). In our hands now: How hospitals leaders can build a thriving workforce. Chicago: American Hospital Association.
Aiken, L.H., Clarke, S.P., Sloane, D.M., Sochalski, J., & Silber, J.H. (2002, October 23-30). Hospital nurse staffing and patient mortality, nurse burnout, and job dissatisfaction. Journal of American Medical Association, 288(16), 1987-1993. Retrieved from
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Staiger, D., Auerback, D., & Buerhaus, P. (2000). Expanding career opportunities for women and the declining interest in nursing as a career. Nursing Economics,18(5), 230-236.
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Tri-Council for Nursing (2001). Strategies to reverse the new nursing shortage. American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Retrieved , from www.aacn.nche.edu/Publications/positions/tricshortage.htm
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