IT MIGHT SEEM AMBITIOUS—especially given the daunting workforce challenges that California hospitals face—but Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles is working toward nurse workforce utopia.

Powered by its Institute for Professional Nursing Development, Cedars-Sinai is aiming to employ a full nursing staff without having to use travelers or other agency nurses, have a nursing workforce with a minimum baccalaureate-level education, and have all nurses certified in the specialties in which they practice.

“We don’t see it as just a destination; it’s a journey, and we’re on that path,” says Jane Swanson, RN, PhD, director of the institute at Cedars-Sinai Health System. “We want to continually make that path smoother for our nurses.”

Cedars-Sinai Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer Linda Burnes Bolton, RN, DrPH, FAAN, came up with the model, which addresses the biggest issues in nursing today: the shortage and driving more people into nursing, nursing education, evidence-based practice, the need for nursing leadership and workforce retention. The institute opened in 2002 on the medical center’s campus.

Swanson says the institute includes five prongs: leadership development and recognition; specialty education and development; research and innovation; community service linkage; and entry into the profession.

The leadership development and recognition arm includes basic and advanced leadership education to help nurses assume managerial and leadership roles. Among other things, it includes a preceptor program aimed at providing better quality preceptors for nursing students.

“In the first six months, we had about 22 people who participated in our preceptor program for a total of around 3,000 hours; this past six months that ended in February, we had 159 people participate in our preceptor program for over 17,000 hours of mentoring,” Swanson says.

The education prong focuses on increasing degree education, as well as continuing education. Through a California Department of Education development grant, Cedars-Sinai is working with three community colleges to provide LVN-to-RN, RN and entry-level LVN programs. The institute provides on-site baccalaureate and master’s programs in nursing via its agreement with a local university.

The specialty education and development umbrella involves 13 internships for specialty nurse training.

“One of our real tenets here at the institute,” Swanson says, “is the more that [nurses are] learning, the more they are involved in their profession, the happier they are. The happier the nurses are, the more satisfied they are in their practice, the more they are dealing with their passion for nursing, then the better the patient outcomes. It’s a continual cycle of learning, mentoring and teaching.”

The research and innovation focus is on enhancing evidence-based practice and is a joint practice between medical and nursing research. Entry into the profession represents the institute’s outreach programs to middle and high school students.

The medical center also is helping to fund the expansion of classroom space and additional faculty at a local university.

Although Cedars-Sinai, a Magnet hospital, had many of these programs in place before the institute opened, the scale at which the hospital is providing them has increased, according to Swanson, who runs the institute and oversees its seven educators.

In less than two years since its launch, the institute is making a dent in Cedars-Sinai’s more immediate nursing workforce needs. The institute will have ushered in 150 new nurses with specialty preparation, BSNs and leadership skills in time to staff its new critical care tower, due to open in the spring of 2005.

It also is helping Cedars-Sinai to comply with the requirements of the state’s mandatory nurse ratios by training nonlicensed personnel to become either LVNs or RNs.