NurseWeek News

Snowball Effect
Build on the success of the past year for even bigger gains in 2003

By Beth Ulrich, Ed.D., RN, South Central Editor
December 9, 2002

As we approach the end of the year, there is always a sense of trying to tie up loose ends so that we can start the new year fresh. It is also a time to evaluate the past 12 months to see what we have accomplished (or not). Here are a few highlights and lowlights of 2002:

We began the year full of hope as the Nursing Reinvestment Act had just wound its way through the reconciliation process and was headed for the president's desk. The act was not funded, however, and funding efforts came to a screeching halt after the November elections changed the Senate majority and both houses of Congress went on early vacations.

Many local, state and national efforts, including the work of Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow and Johnson & Johnson, significantly increased interest in nursing among young people as well as people seeking a second-career option. A new problem arose when the number of qualified applicants to nursing programs in many parts of the country exceeded the number of student slots available. Fortunately, we saw numerous instances of hospitals and businesses that were willing to collaborate with nursing schools to allow more students to enroll either through funding faculty positions or contributing their own staff who could assume some faculty duties. This is clearly not the long-term answer, but it was a much-appreciated jump start to solving the problem. In the coming year, we need to address not only funding additional faculty positions, but also increasing faculty pay.

Nursing salaries rose and retention began to take precedence over-or at least have equal status with-recruitment. Organizations began to look more closely at how to invest in the nurses they have and thereby increase the satisfaction of both nurses and patients. Magnet hospital concepts, once embraced by only a few, became the goal of many, and research showing what we all know in our hearts and minds-that more registered nurses caring for patients means better patient care-found its way into mainstream health care and the public media.

As for NURSEWEEK, we continued to publish for more than 1 million nurses, expanded and improved our Web site, launched a weekly e-mail news update, increased our continuing education offerings, completed a national study on the career intentions of nurses and their views on work environment, began a project to follow a group of new graduates through their first year of practice to learn what facilitates and hinders entry into our profession and honored nearly 200 nurses at our Nursing Excellence Awards events.

Finally, in a heartwarming end to the year, the annual Gallup Poll survey on honesty and ethics in professions conducted Nov. 22-24 found nurses back on top when the public was asked to rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in a number of professions. (Last year we dropped to second, behind firefighters, but had been first the previous two years.) Seventy-nine percent of respondents rated the honesty and ethical standards of nurses as very high or high (22 percent very high, 57 percent high). The next highest rated professions were pharmacists (67 percent), military officers (65 percent), grade and high schoolteachers (64 percent) and medical doctors (63 percent).

We made many gains this year, but there is much work left. The latest Gallup Poll results are a good foundation for our efforts in 2003.

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