I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to share my thoughts about the importance of the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) framework and advancing health equity. So, what is this and why does it merit discussion?

Most experts and organizations identify SDoH as the core conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. These external or contextual conditions exert influence over the resources, options, barriers and facilitators that individuals, groups and populations encounter across the life span. KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation) provides an excellent description of some categories that comprise these contextual factors, which include economic stability, physical environment, education, food, community and social context, and healthcare. The World Health Organization specifically includes genetics and gender. Contextual factors are driven by systemic influences such as economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, racism, climate change, and political systems. Increasingly, war and civil unrest have been examined as important influences on health and quality of life worldwide (Penderson D, 2002; Wiist WH, et al, 2014).

Now that we’re on the same page regarding what SDoH is, I think a better way to understand what this looks like is through an individual life and how it impacts communities. I’ll use my life and the impact on the community with which I am most familiar.

In 1951, I was born to a family with a young mother and father and ultimately nine children. My neighborhood, with one of the highest population densities in an urban city, included only Black residents. The community resources (stores, employment opportunities, public transportation) were limited.  A comprehensive health care center was not established until 1968 (which helped to replace the hospital emergency room outside the neighborhood as our primary source of healthcare). Racial discrimination was an accepted part of our daily experiences; some stores, recreation venues and communities were off limits to Black residents. Industrial, often polluting businesses were commonly placed within this community. So, many of the factors that are now established as SDoH influences were part of my and my family’s life and had significant impact on our opportunities, health, and wellbeing. One of my sisters died as a result. The context in which we lived directly influenced the late identification and severity of her chronic illness, the resulting disability, and subsequently her early death.

If you think ‘that was a long time ago,’ you’re right. It was. However, examining this same community more recently demonstrates that progress is slow. Data from 2017 show that there are still significant differences in income, morbidity and mortality between residents of my former, primarily Black community and the more affluent communities in the same city. Resources are significantly less and industry continues to be a concern related to its impact on environmental health. The first hospital within the community is only now being built. It will open soon. An excellent discussion of the impact of SDoH on my community (and two others) is presented in the 2008 PBS documentary series Unnatural Causes…. Is Inequality Making Us Sick?.

If we have this body of evidence available to us as health care providers, what are our opportunities for change (practice/service provision, advocacy, research, and education) and what should our obligations be to the populations we serve and our society at large?

A critical paradigm shift is needed. Healthcare provider education must include SDoH and the differences experienced by populations (historically and contemporaneously). This approach not only validates the importance of this framework to care delivery; involvement in learning such as this also serves as a lens to better understand the reality of inequity and the structures that perpetuate this inequity.

Health care provider organizations have long prioritized advocacy as part of their mission. However, much of that advocacy has been directed toward issues that address the perspectives of the profession (to better serve their identified population or to advance their profession). Fewer efforts are directed toward economic policies, social norms, and political systems that perpetuate negative influences on health, behavior, and wellbeing for the larger society.

Nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers and they hold great potential for elevating and teaching SDoH and advocating for change to address those factors that result in disparate health outcomes. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity (National Academies, 2021)explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity. This document and the evidence supporting the importance of the SDoH obligate nursing (and other professions) to be informed at all educational levels and tie their efforts to that knowledge.

It is past time to examine our theoretical underpinnings to determine how they do – or do not – consider external influences on individual or population behaviors and outcomes. Theory without context has limited utility for practice or research.

We need to examine our language. Does it absolve contextual influences and focus on the individual in unintended ways? If we call out and advocate for change in underlying causes, could we lessen the need for “building resilience” in affected individuals and communities? Are we teaching people to better bear a burden to the exclusion of putting our energies into relieving that burden? Understanding SDoH requires us to do both.

To make this paradigm shift, providers must be taught how to take risks, and be supported in doing so. We must expect those who teach to model behaviors that recognize SDoH and inequity. Nursing has been cautious in speaking out – to the systems to which we belong, to those who enact policies, and to political systems. Health is affected by all these. We cannot be silent and still lead. Join me in speaking out.

Vicki P. Hines-Martin is Professor Emerita at the University of Louisville School of Nursing and the recipient of the 2023 Equity-Minded Nurse Leadership Award, which was co-sponsored by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership.

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What kind of initiative brings together a beef council, a local theater group, and a state’s largest university? A Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action-supported program where nurses take on the problem of suicide in innovative ways. The Campaign is an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Kentucky Action Coalition’s “Kentucky Partners to the BARN (Bringing Awareness Right Now)” initiative first received funding from the Campaign’s Nursing Innovations Fund in 2020. In its initial phase, the project focused on the epidemic of farmer suicide. Action Coalitions are the Campaign’s state-based coalitions.

As the program’s leaders explained in an essay, while anyone can experience mental health issues, including suicidal thoughts, certain professions are more vulnerable because of several additional factors.

“Farmers are more susceptible to suicide because of unique stressors and suicide exposures associated with agriculture production, which include social isolation, relationship problems, and unpredictable forces such as crop and livestock loss, machinery breakdown, and commodity market fluctuations,” the team wrote.

The BARN program addresses these problems through the “Farmer Dinner Theater” approach first developed by Deborah Reed, PhD, RN, FAAN. Through dramatic presentations featuring actors as well as the farmers themselves, these gatherings help farm families discuss health issues facing their communities.

In the Action Coalition’s version of the program, more than 30 students who had an interest in agricultural careers were recruited through local 4-H clubs. They were then trained in suicide prevention skills as well as theater skills in order to produce the skits for the dinner theater.

In the end, 255 people attended the dinners, far exceeding organizers’ initial estimate of 100 attendees. Participants are exposed to a variety of proven mental health interventions, from breathing techniques to basic suicide intervention resources. But all the information is grounded in re-enactments of real situations that farm families may have faced.

“It is real, it is raw, it is powerful,” said Janie Heath, PhD, APRN, FAAN, dean of the University of Kentucky’s College of Nursing and one of the program’s organizers. “I have never seen a more engaged group of people in my life.”

Reflecting on the development of the program, Heath credits advice from the Campaign that prompted her and her colleagues to better engage with the community and its needs. That idea put them on the path to partnerships with groups like 4-H, the Kentucky Beef Council, and the Actors Theater of Louisville. The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food & Environment and the Kentucky Future Farmers of America Association are also partners in this effort.

“Some of the best advice we received from the Campaign was to reach out to non-nurses to help us think about our strategy and next steps,” she said.

This evolution in thinking was part of a larger turn toward health equity in nursing, said Julie Marfell, DNP, APRN, a University of Kentucky professor and another leader of the project.

Since receiving their first innovation award in 2020, the Kentucky Action Coalition has greatly expanded its impact. Another innovation award in 2021 helped the group expand the BARN program to address the issues of mental health and suicide among young people, recruiting 100 school nurses to participate.

The same training and tools will also be used to address nurses’ well-being, an urgent priority identified by National Academy of Medicine’s The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity.

“It’s all about getting nurses involved in this work and trained in this work, and it all goes back to that first funding from the Campaign,” Heath said.

But the increase in impact goes beyond any one program. Heath said the new strategies and connections developed over the past few years have helped Kentucky’s nurses become more influential on policy matters. For example, the state recently moved to require continuing education in suicide prevention for nurses.

“We’re working with state government. We’re working with city councils. We’ve got street cred now and everyone understands that we’re not going away,” she said.

The Kentucky Action Coalition also has big plans to share what they have learned with other states. Working with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, the College of Nursing is developing a toolkit to reproduce their successes with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The toolkit will include a planning guide, curricula, facilitators’ guide, and “train the trainer” lessons. Organizers plan to share the toolkit throughout the southern region of the United States.

To learn more about how you can implement programs like the one in Kentucky, visit the Nursing Innovations Fund page on the project.

The post Reducing Suicide Among Kentucky Farmers appeared first on Campaign for Action.

When nurses are empowered to create health equity in their communities, they bring together a network like nobody else can.

The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has demonstrated this principle through its Nursing Innovations Fund that supports the Campaign’s state-based Action Coalitions in creating replicable and promising solutions for improving health equity through nursing.

The Nursing Innovations Fund was also designed to spark collaboration with partners outside of nursing. One condition of the award is that applicants must seek matching funds from other organizations. In combination with other tools to engage local stakeholders, the awards have led to an impressive array of new multi-sector relationships, helping nurses discover new allies for creating better access to care and services.

Launched in 2018, the Nursing Innovations Fund has led to new projects in 23 states. The Campaign has awarded more than $850,000 to a wide variety of initiatives, with every dollar being matched by other funders. This blog highlights the collaborations and projects from the 2019 and 2020 cohorts representing 17 states, whom created over a dozen publicly accessible tools to be used for building health equity. All of the resources are available on the Campaign website.

State coalitions secured investment from multiple organizations that understand why it is so important to invest in better access to care and services. They include organizations one might expect, such as hospitals, nursing schools, and regional philanthropies. Action Coalitions also secured funding from unexpected sources:

• In Georgia, funding from the Clayton County Fire and Emergency Services helped create more effective paths for Black men to enter nursing.  
• In Kentucky, the Kentucky Beef Council supported an initiative to prevent suicide in the farming community, and
• In Nebraska, Scoular, an agriculture supply chain company, contributed matching funds to a project aimed at improving health equity.

In addition to funders, Action Coalitions garnered critical support from community partners representing dozens of different organizations. Here are a few of their stories:

• In Pennsylvania, a podcast highlighting nurses in health equity roles featured many local partners, including Sanctuary Farm, a program that converts abandoned areas in Philadelphia to farm plots.
• In Washington, a program to bring culturally appropriate food and essentials to older Filipino community members worked with local and national groups such as the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns.
• In Indiana, nurses from the Indiana Center for Nursing collaborated with the AARP state office to enable nursing schools across the state to implement holistic admissions programs

Crucial to the impact of these projects is the idea that all of them can provide insights that help many other organizations disrupt disparities and improve access to care and services.

Actions Coalitions drew on well-established tools to address health disparities, including the Campaign’s Heath Equity Toolkit and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Healthy People 2030. In turn, many of them developed new resources to help others:

• In Wisconsin, the Action Coalition developed a curriculum to improve nurses’ disaster response capabilities, and it is being shared throughout the state.
• In Massachusetts, nurses developed an anti-vaping resource kit for use in public schools.
• The Pennsylvania initiative centers on a podcast that helps nurses envision new careers in health equity.

Together, these partnerships, resources, and insights add up to a powerful network working to achieve health equity in the U.S. built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise, as the National Academy of Medicine’s Future of Nursing 2020—2030 report has envisioned.

In the coming weeks, this Campaign blog will feature more detailed explorations of how this work brought together local and state coalitions to address health equity. Projects to be featured include:

• Indiana – This project brought together partners including AARP Indiana State office and Orbis Education to help nursing programs implement holistic admissions and peer-to-peer mentoring for the Nursing Education, Engagement, and Diversity Statewide Initiative, or NEEDS.
• Kentucky – The Kentucky Nurses Action Coalition enlisted school nurses to address the state’s disproportionate suicide rate, culminating in a dramatic presentation designed with the Actors Theater of Louisville. Title: School Nurses to BARN Camp for the Mental Health and Wellness of Kentucky Youth.
• Massachusetts – This project addressed vaping in youth in partnership with education and law enforcement groups from across the state, yielding new curricula to aid teachers in elementary and secondary schools. Title: Promoting Health Literacy to Influence Health and Wellness of Students in the Community: Widening the Connections.
• North Carolina – Working with the North Carolina Action Coalition, the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University developed a new model of coalition-building to help African American and rural communities. Title: Project RARE (Reciprocal, Authentic, Relationships for Equity).
• Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Nurses Center explored gaps in the state’s emergency preparedness plans, then developed a training to help nurses address the problems. Partners included nursing schools as well as the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative and the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association. Title: Preparing Wisconsin Nurses to Address the Needs of Vulnerable Populations in a Public Health Emergency.

Previous blog entries have also explored Nursing Innovations Fund programs in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Are you interested in addressing health equity in ways like the Campaign’s Action Coalitions? Visit the Nursing Innovations Fund page for a complete list of programs as well as the Campaign resources nurses used to create them.

The post Nursing Innovations Funds Stimulate Partnerships appeared first on Campaign for Action.

The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), has announced that six nurse-led projects will receive Nursing Innovations Fund awards of up to $25,000 each. The projects submitted by the Campaign’s state-based coalitions all serve to strengthen nursing’s role in building a Culture of Health and promoting health equity by addressing societal barriers to health and well-being, including structural racism. The projects are described below.

The winning projects are from Delaware, Kentucky, Montana, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia, and were selected based on offering replicable strategies that help nurses promote health equity and well-being, while highlighting the importance of collaboration with diverse stakeholders. In fact, each of the 2021 Nursing Innovations Fund projects secured dollar-to-dollar matching funds from local and state partners as a condition of the award, which prioritizes coalition building to achieve sustainable change. As of 2020, the Campaign’s state coalitions have raised more than $93 million from community partners.

“This award’s focus on health equity has never felt more urgent,” said Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior adviser for nursing at RWJF and director of the Campaign for Action. “This pandemic has put a spotlight on the inequities in our healthcare system. People of color, with lower incomes and those living in remote communities have gotten sick and died in the greatest numbers. Nurses remain on the front lines as trusted providers of care, and they are stepping up to innovate ways to build more equity into the system.”

“It is remarkable to me that despite the unprecedented pressure nurses are under during this pandemic, they are prioritizing the critical work that is needed to create structures to make health care more equitable in every way,” said Susan C. Reinhard, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior vice president and director of the AARP Public Policy Institute, and chief strategist at the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and RWJF, which coordinates the Campaign for Action. “We received impressive proposals from all over the country, including some places hardest hit by COVID. I feel so much pride in our profession right now.”

“When nurses reflect the communities they serve, you see significant improvements in health and health equity,” said Eric J. Williams, DNP, RN, FAAN, interim associate dean of health sciences, nursing program director at Santa Monica College, and co-chair of the EDISC. “No one is better positioned than nurses to innovate ways to make their profession more inclusive and diverse.”

The Campaign’s Nursing Innovations Fund was created in 2018 to support work of its state Action Coalitions and allies that inform and influence policy, produce replicable strategies that place nurses in positions as essential partners in providing care, and strategically involve a diversity of stakeholders. This competition was limited to the Action Coalitions or organizations designated by Action Coalitions and required applicants to raise funds to match the award dollars. To date, Action Coalitions and their allies in 23 states have received Nursing Innovations Fund awards to build healthier communities through nursing.

The winners and an overview of each of their projects are listed below:

Delaware

Title: Nursing in the 21st Century: Exposing Middle School Students to a Career in Nursing

School nurses from Delaware’s Brandywine School District will pilot an afterschool program that aims to increase awareness of nursing career pathways among students from underrepresented communities. Working with key stakeholders, the project staff will construct and administer a program that focuses on informing middle schoolers, especially students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, low-income communities, and boys about potential career opportunities in nursing. The pilot will be administered in three district middle schools during the project year and shared with educators across the state.

Kentucky

Title: School Nurses to BARN Camp for the Mental Health and Wellness of Kentucky Youth

The Kentucky Nurses Action Coalition will partner with the University of Kentucky College of Nursing to implement a mental health and wellness training for school nurses with the goal of decreasing youth suicide in the state, which far exceeds the national average. This project expands on the Bringing Action Right Now, or BARN, initiative aimed at addressing health equity via social isolation awareness and training. Project leaders will recruit 100 school nurses to participate in the program and will work with a variety of community stakeholders, including the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Montana

Title: Coalition Catalyst: Building Health Equity in Montana

The Montana Center to Advance Health Through Nursing (MT CAHN) aims to advance health equity by involving two nurse leaders on the newly formed Montana Health Equity Task Force. This task force was created to influence policy and guide programs that will improve health equity for Montanans, and the nurse leaders will provide a nursing lens and act as a liaison for the state’s nursing community supporting local level, health equity-focused strategies. Additionally, the nurse leaders will utilize the Campaign for Action’s Health Equity Toolkit to help develop and deliver a health equity track at the MT CAHN Nursing Summit in June 2022.

Pennsylvania

Title: Pennsylvania Action Coalition Cohort of Exchanged Learning (PA-ACCEL) Mentorship Program

The Pennsylvania Action Coalition (PA-AC) will expand its current mentoring program that aims to equip nurses from underrepresented backgrounds with the tools they need to be successful nursing students and nursing professionals. Key components of the 2021-2022 program include mentorship matching from the PA-AC’s Nurse Diversity Council, along with exposure to public health advocacy to inspire health equity and justice. Additionally, the coalition will enhance and promote its PA-ACCEL Toolkit as a model for replication nationwide.

Utah

Title: Building Diversity and Health Equity Competence into the Pipeline of Utah’s Nursing Workforce

The Utah Action Coalition for Health, working with Holy Cross Ministries, will pursue a two-part project designed to build diversity and health equity competence in Utah’s nursing workforce pipeline. The project will increase exposure to nursing careers in predominantly Hispanic communities, and embed Certified Health Workers’ knowledge of health equity/disparities into Certified Nursing Assistant training programs. The Campaign for Action’s Health Equity Toolkit will be interwoven in the project’s implementation phase, and a steering committee composed of key partners will be created for guidance. The project will focus on two school districts initially, with the opportunity for expansion later.

West Virginia

Title: Health Equity Skill Building Multimedia Continuing Education Pilot Project

The Future of Nursing West Virginia (FONWV) will develop a Health Equity Skills Building Multimedia Continuing Education (CE) package for nurses and nursing students. It will focus on the multicultural needs of Appalachian and minority communities in rural and underserved areas of the state and cover systemic racism, implicit bias, equity in care for select populations (starting with LGBTQIA), improving culturally competent care, and building effective cross-cultural communication. The goal is to improve nurse and student nurse skills in building healthier relationships that address disparities, particularly related to stress and trauma.

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About the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action

The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action is a national initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and RWJF, working to implement the National Academy of Medicine’s evidence-based recommendations on the future of nursing. The Campaign includes Action Coalitions in nearly every state and the District of Columbia and a wide range of health care professionals, consumer advocates, policy-makers, and the business, academic, and philanthropic communities. The Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and RWJF, serves as the coordinating entity for the Campaign. Learn more at www.campaignforaction.org. Follow on Twitter at @Campaign4Action and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CampaignForAction.

The post Campaign Names Winners of 2021 Nursing Innovations Fund Award appeared first on Campaign for Action.

The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), is pleased to announce that 10 projects proposed by its state-based Action Coalitions, or in a few cases, organizations designated by an Action Coalition, have been selected to receive awards up to $25,000 each for new or ongoing work that strengthens nursing’s role in building a Culture of Health and promoting health equity. All 2020  Nursing Innovations Fund secured dollar to dollar matching funds from a variety of partners, including local county fire and emergency services, a state beef council, United Way, local foundations, health and hospital systems, universities and individual donors, to name a few.

The winning projects from nearly every region of the country range from developing nurse leaders to serve on local boards to a mentoring program for Black men that promotes educational attainment and employment opportunities in nursing. All are designed to address policies that impact the many different social, economic and environmental factors that shape our health, and that will lead to greater health equity for all.

RWJF defines health equity as, “everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments and health care.”

“As a co-chair of the Campaign’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee (EDISC),

I am proud that these 2020 Nursing Innovation Fund projects are committed to advancing health equity, particularly at a moment when our nation is finally paying increased attention to addressing systemic racism,” said Carmen Alvarez, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, assistant professor, Department of Community-Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.

“A pathway to equity is to help build better health through nursing,” said Eric J. Williams, DNP,  RN, FAAN, assistant director and faculty chair and professor of nursing at Santa Monica College, and fellow co-chair of the EDISC. “These efforts are a step in that direction and I applaud the Action Coalitions for their work.”

The Campaign’s Nursing Innovations Fund was created in 2018 to support work of its Action Coalitions and allies that inform and influence policy, produce replicable strategies that place nurses in positions as essential partners in providing care, and strategically involve a diversity of stakeholders. This competition was limited to the Action Coalitions or organizations designated by Action Coalitions and required applicants to raise funds to match the award dollars. To date, 23 Action Coalitions and allies have received Nursing Innovation Fund awards to build healthier communities through nursing.

“As our nation continues to face the devastation wrought by COVID-19, nurses remain on the frontlines as trusted providers of care. Now, more than ever, our country is relying on nurses to apply their unique knowledge and understanding of community needs for better health. These states demonstrate how nurses use that critical perspective to implement innovative programs to improve health and well-being,” said Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior adviser for nursing at RWJF and director of the Campaign for Action and Susan C. Reinhard, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior vice president and director of the AARP Public Policy Institute, and chief strategist at the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and RWJF, which coordinates the Campaign for Action.

The winners and an overview of their proposals are listed below:

Arkansas and Tennessee

The Arkansas Center for Nursing and the Tennessee Action Coalition aims to develop nurse leadership and places nurses on local housing and planning boards throughout the Arkansas Tennessee Delta region, to help create healthier communities through the project, “Nurses Building a Culture of Health in the Arkansas-Tennessee Delta”. This geographic area has a history of inequities, poverty and poor health outcomes. Matching funds were provided by the Arkansas State Board of Nursing, the Tennessee Department of Health and the Tennessee Housing Development Agency.

Georgia

The Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition plans to implement a mentoring program for Black men that promotes educational attainment and employment opportunities in nursing through the “High School to Higher Education: Increasing Black Male Representation in Nursing” project. The efforts will engage community partners as stakeholders and employ a holistic approach to providing professional and personal development opportunities to assist mentors and mentees build the skills needed for educational attainment and employment success.

Kentucky

The Kentucky Nurses Action Coalition’s project, “Kentucky Partners to the BARN (Bringing Awareness Right Now) Program for a Farmer Dinner Theater Addressing Mental Health & Wellness” is a three-part intervention program designed to help address farmer mental health issues and prevent suicide. Fifty high school students with an agricultural career interest will receive tailored training sessions to raise self-awareness about mental health and wellness, learn suicide prevention skills and theater skills to produce a dinner theater addressing mental health and wellness for approximately 100 Kentucky farmers and their families.

Nebraska

The Nebraska Action Coalition’s project, “Striving for Health Equity in Nebraska,” works to address social determinants through a multipronged approach.

1. Build professional students’ knowledge of population health by having them design and disseminate health information at school health fairs.
2. Develop community-based partnerships via an advanced practice registered nurse led clinic which provides integrated behavioral health care for rural and underserved populations.
3. Promote awareness and build partnerships through an annual Leadership/Culture of Health conference. The conference will address topics such as advocacy, policy, mental health/self-care, implicit bias, and it will also include a “COVID-19 Lessons Learned” panel.

North Carolina

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s project, “On the Ground: Access to Care through Building Faith, Health, and Community Partnerships,” supported by the North Carolina Action Coalition, seeks to develop a faith, health, and community engagement model utilizing the Campaign’s Health Equity Toolkit. The program aims to enhance the health equity advocacy and partnership/coalition building skills of nurses, nursing students, pastors and church members to promote the health and well-being of communities through congregations. It will also create a regional steering committee to engage stakeholders to prioritize and address social determinants of health that adversely affect the health and well-being of African American and rural communities, and promote health-related congregational activities focused on the needs of the community.

Pennsylvania

Through its “At the Core of Care” podcast, the Pennsylvania Action Coalition will showcase stories of nurses and their partners driving change by addressing social determinants of health. The series will be incorporated into nursing school classrooms to inspire public health leadership and advocacy.

Washington

The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns launched the “Bayanihan Response to COVID-19″ to respond to the immediate and long-term health and wellness needs of Filipino communities in the United States and the Philippines. Via a telephone weekly check in and screening with elders identified as high need, callers assess for COVID-19 symptoms, food, prescription, utilities, housing needs and pre-paid phone minutes. They also offer a grocery and meal delivery program to ensure clients have access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food.  Lastly, they will conduct a community wellness survey. Focus group results will be disseminated to community members, stakeholders, and the public. In collaboration with Seattle University College of Nursing, and support of the Washington Action Coalition, they will use survey data to create interventions and initiatives to address community needs.

West Virginia

The West Virginia Action Coalition project, “RN Entrepreneur Project Continuation,” will create five sustainable nurse businesses and teach the entrepreneur course to 20 additional nurses. The training curriculum and program will expand across the state.

Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Action Coalition’s project, “Preparing Wisconsin Nurses to Address the Needs of Vulnerable Populations in a Public Health Emergency”, will design and develop trainings for Wisconsin nurses in response to the specific educational needs created by COVID-19. Trainings will address disparities impacting Wisconsin’s most vulnerable populations. Components include: launching educational programs for Milwaukee nurses who care for diverse and vulnerable populations, evaluating and improving learning content and methodologies and expanding the program statewide.

Wyoming

The aim of the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities, University of Wyoming, in support with the Wyoming Action Coalition project, “Facilitating Seniors’ Use of Technology to Decrease Social Isolation,” is for nursing students to help older adults use technology in their homes to access health care, purchase groceries and household goods, and communicate with their friends and family.

The post 2020 Nursing Innovations Fund Award Winners appeared first on Campaign for Action.

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State

California: Bay Area Council Economic Institute Analysis Finds Granting Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Costs

Florida: Expanding Scope of Practice for Advanced Registered Nurses, Physician Assistants, Optometrists, and Dental Hygienists

Kentucky: Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost

Massachusetts: Controlling Health Spending in Massachusetts

Minnesota: Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost

New Jersey: Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost

North Carolina: Economic benefits of less restrictive regulation of advanced practice nurses in North Carolina.

Ohio: The Impact of Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners and Other Advanced Practice Registered Nurses in Ohio

Pennsylvania: The Value of Full Practice Authority for Pennsylvania’s Nurse Practitioners

Texas: The Economic Benefits of More Fully Utilizing Advanced Practice Registered Nurses in the Provision of Health Care in Texas: An Analysis of Local and Statewide Effects on Business Activity

National

 Medicare and Medicaid: Impact of Nurse Practitioners on Health Outcomes of Medicare and Medicaid Patients

Comparing the Cost of Care Provided to Medicare Beneficiaries Assigned to Primary Care Nurse Practitioners and Physicians

Anesthesia: Cost Effectiveness Analysis of Anesthesia Providers

Maternity care: Potential Medicaid Cost Savings from Maternity Care Based at a Freestanding Birth Center

Neonatal: Collaboration, Not Competition

Long term care: Onsite Nurse Practitioners at Skilled Nursing Facilities Prevent Avoidable Hospitalizations

Retail clinics: Scope-of-Practice Laws for nurse Practitioners Limit Cost Savings That Can Be Achieved in Retail Clinics

The post Studies That Show the Economic Benefits of Removing Barriers to Practice and Care appeared first on Campaign for Action.

• Distribution of population by race/ethnicity
• Percentage of population living in rural versus urban areas
• Distribution of population by federal poverty level
• Areas in which there is a shortage of primary health professionals

These statistics can guide your Action Coalition’s work in shaping a nursing workforce to better meet local needs and overcoming health disparities in your state. As you integrate other Culture of Health aspects into your work, consider how demographics play a role in health equity and fostering cross-sector collaboration.

The post Demographic and Workforce Facts appeared first on Campaign for Action.

The Bay Area Council Economic Institute set out to answer that question, and this page contains whitepapers on what they found.

“Simply put: an inefficient delivery system that unnecessarily restricts health professionals from practicing to the full extent of their training is bad for the economy and bad for business” says one of the reports, “Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost.”

The Institute took a close look at California, Kentucky, Minnesota and New Jersey. It found that businesses would save significant amounts of money in each state if nursing practice policies were modernized to provide consumers more direct access to nurse practitioners.

The reports:

Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost

The Bay Area Council Economic Institute designed a model to measure the value that state nursing scope of practice policies have on businesses’ bottom lines. They applied that model to several states and identified that businesses would save significant money if their respective states’ nursing scope of practice policies were modernized. Below are the original model and the state reports they have produced, to date.

Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost: Spotlight California

If California’s practice restrictions were lifted, there would be an additional 4,000 nurse practitioners working in the state today, an increase of 24 percent.

It is estimated that if California had full practice authority for nurse practitioners it would save $1.8 billion in the cost of preventative care visits in the first 10 years.

Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost: Spotlight Kentucky

If Kentucky’s practice restrictions were lifted, there would be an additional 500 nurse practitioners working in the state today, an increase of 18 percent.

It is estimated that if Kentucky had full practice authority for nurse practitioners it would save over $200 million in the cost of preventative care visits in the first 10 years.

 Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost: Spotlight Minnesota

Minnesota granted nurse practitioners full practice authority in the beginning of 2015; if the restrictions were lifted previously, there would be an additional 600 nurse practitioners working in the state today, a 20 percent increase.

It is estimated that Minnesota will save over $250 million in the cost of preventative care visits for the first ten years.

Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners Increases Access and Controls Cost: Spotlight New Jersey

If New Jersey’s practice restrictions were lifted, there would be an additional 1,050 nurse practitioners working in the state today, an increase of 25 percent.

It is estimated that if New Jersey had full practice authority for nurse practitioners it would save over $400 million in the cost of preventative care visits in the first 10 years.

• Study: APRN Scope-of-Practice Restrictions Are Costly to the Economy

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Since the launch of Kentucky’s nationally lauded health insurance exchange website, more than 123,500 Kentuckians have enrolled in new health coverage, including Medicaid and private insurance. These newly insured consumers will be in search of primary and preventative care services amidst the severe physician shortage across the majority of the state’s counties, 73% of which have partial or full designation as primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA). This new law is a part of the solution to the provider shortage because it enables many more consumers to access care provided by nurse practitioners.

After signing the bill into law, Governor Beshear sent the following tweet:

Kentucky State Senator John Schickel, who co-sponsored SB 7, stated in a recent article that the bill was “an important measure aimed at increasing accessibility to health care in Kentucky…This comes after years of dedicated effort and I was proud that the first bill to land on the governor’s desk this year was one that eases burdens on patients and their practitioners.”

The ceremonial signing of this bill into law, the first to be signed in the current legislative session, occurred on February 26. Congratulations to Kentucky patients, nurses, and the many stakeholder groups, including AARP Kentucky, who helped to support this important legislation!

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