On February 2, 2023 the Pennsylvania Action Coalition had the pleasure of attending the 35th Annual National Black Nurses (NBNA) Day on Capitol Hill with students from the Pennsylvania Action Coalition Cohort of Exchanged Learning (PA-ACCEL) Mentorship Program. The PA-ACCEL Mentorship Program was created by the Pennsylvania Action Coalition’s Nurse Diversity Council (PA-NDC) in partnership with Lincoln University’s Department of Nursing with the goal of bolstering nursing students’ capacity to be successful both in nursing school and in their transition to professional nursing practice.

The NBNA forum was dedicated to congressional health issues and policy.  Student mentees from the PA-ACCEL Mentorship Program, learned about seven key legislative priorities advancing health equity. These legislative topics included:

1. Ensuring Health Equity: Supporting the Nursing Workforce
2. Gun Violence: America’s Continued Crisis
3. Obesity: America’s Health Calamity
4. Suicide: A Mental Health Catastrophe
5. Equity and Wellness:  Climate and Environmental Justice
6. Criminal Justice Reform and Health Inequities
7. Time to Reckon with Black Maternal Health

The nursing students, along with members of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Area Black Nurses Association, educated legislators on these advocacy topics. They heard from Congressional Black Caucus members regarding promoting health equity. It was especially poignant to hear from Representative Lauren Underwood, herself a registered nurse from Illinois. We also heard from the following representatives: Summer Lee (PA), James Clyburn (SC), Terri A. Swell (AL),  Jonathan Jackson (IL), Jasmine Crockett (TX), Donald Payne (NJ), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Robin Kelly (IL), and Bennie G. Thompson (MI).

We were carried away by the energy of these esteemed guests, but it was even more inspiring to hear from the students about their experiences.

Elizabeth Gomez, a senior nursing student at Lincoln University said, “This experience will always remind me of my duty as a nurse, to serve and lead people to better health while ensuring equity. I’m thankful to be part of such leadership.”

Her classmate, Jordyn Sanders, shared that, “Capitol Hill was a great eye-opening experience on public health crises that we as nurses can aid in demolishing! Great networking!”

We look forward to offering this experience to more students in the cohort for the upcoming academic year. We will be expanding our PA-ACCEL mentorship program to also include students in the Independence Blue Cross Foundation’s Healthcare Scholars Program. The Healthcare Scholars Program creates a regional pathway from local high schools to college to increase underrepresented groups in the nursing profession. Through this program, underrepresented students pursuing an undergraduate degree in nursing will receive full academic scholarships. Selected nursing schools in the Southeastern Pennsylvania region participating in the Nurses for Tomorrow grant will be awarded up to $35,000 per year for funding for tuition and fees for undergraduate nursing students pursuing an Associate’s Degree in Nursing (ADN) or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). The PA-ACCEL Mentorship Program is funded by the Independence Blue Cross Foundation and the PA Action Coalition and receives in-kind support from the PA-NDC. The PA-ACCEL Mentorship Program Support Team is led by: Monica J. Harmon, MSN, MPH, RN;  Adriana Perez, PHD, CRNP, ANP-BC, FAAN, FGSA; Vilma Davis, PNP, BC, PHD; Chavon Crampton, MSN, RNC-MNN, CLC, EFM-C; Shukriyyah Mitchell-Hinton, BSN, RN; Saumya Ayyagari, MSN, MPH; Zaharaa Davood, MPH; and Jennifer Gimbel, MBA.

The post Lincoln University Nursing Students Attend NBNA Capitol Hill Day 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.

A diverse nursing workforce means more access to care, and better care, especially for people in communities that have been historically underserved, such as communities of color and rural communities. Efforts are underway across nursing to diversify the workforce so it better reflects the communities it serves.

One such effort comes in the form of mentoring programs at nursing schools that have traditionally served students of color, programs the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action has been supporting for several years. The Campaign, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides in-person and virtual technical assistance to deans and nursing faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and schools that serve Hispanic and Native American nursing students, and  to its state-based Action Coalitions. The goals are to develop mentoring programs that can improve retention and graduation rates and increase the graduates’ passage rates of the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), which is required to practice nursing.

In Pennsylvania, one HBCU mentoring program is off to a promising start. Beginning in 2020, the Pennsylvania Action Coalition/Nurse Diversity Council partnered with Lincoln University in Lincoln University, Pa. a historically black university, to provide mentoring and ongoing leadership development for nursing students.

The idea took shape during a pilot mentor-training program for eight HBCUs in the mid-Atlantic region, which had been convened by the Campaign for Action, AARP, and the Office on Minority Health in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Monica Harmon, MSN, MPH, RN, co-chair of the Pennsylvania Action Coalition Nurse Diversity Council, was there, along with the director of Lincoln University’s Department of Nursing. As they got to talking about how to best support Lincoln’s nursing students, they “kept coming back to professionalism,” Harmon explained. Nursing school is uniquely demanding. Nursing students must attend not only classes but also clinicals in a health care setting. They also have to prepare for and pass the NCLEX. “In many ways, their careers begin while they are still in school,” she said. “We wanted to help them transition from college student to nursing student to professional nurse.”

This young program is moving forward this year with a cohort of 21 nursing students and their 21 mentors – all professionals drawn from the Pennsylvania Action Coalition’s membership. Mentors and mentees connect at least once a month – ideally in person, but by phone, video or text if necessary. The students also get automatic memberships in professional associations, including the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA). In April, they will come together for panels on topics such as how to interview, write a resume and hone their individual leadership to secure their first registered nurse (RN) position.

These future nurses are also learning that policy matters to their chosen profession, and recently joined the NBNA for a Capitol Hill lobby day. As part of their preparation, the students had a training on using the Campaign for Action’s Health Equity Toolkit and learned about a variety of critical issues, including nurse education, workforce issues, Black maternal and infant health, and inequities in telehealth and in cardiac health.

Adriana Perez, PhD, CRNP, ANP-BC, FAAN, FGSA, Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, who also serves as a diversity adviser to the Campaign, has been instrumental in building Lincoln University’s mentoring program. She shared highlights from a survey given to the first group of student mentees. “Eighty-nine percent told us they saw the program as helpful, and 75 percent said that their mentor was a good match, and someone they plan to keep in touch with. And impressively,” noted Perez, “100 percent maintained a GPA of 3.6 or higher in their last semester and were on track with their post-graduation goals.”

Read more about how the Campaign supports mentoring programs like Lincoln University’s and find links to some key resources in this article: /resource/mentoring-for-better-health/.

The post Lincoln University HBCU Mentoring Collaboration 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.

##

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.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses have played a critical role as frontline caregivers, leaders, and educators. As COVID-19 vaccines are developed, produced, distributed and communities vaccinated, vaccine confidence is critical.

To build that confidence, the Pennsylvania Action Coalition (PA-AC) has partnered with the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium (NNCC) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create a six-part series on vaccine confidence for the Action Coalition’s podcast, “At the Core of Care.” The series features nurse champions sharing their experiences with the vaccine, and the goal is to support nurses and communities in conversations to promote COVID-19 vaccine confidence and to support public health. The Pennsylvania Action Coalition is part of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Throughout the series, we speak to nurses from across the country who are working in health clinics, academia, non-profits, and at the CDC. They share firsthand pandemic experiences and walk listeners through their personal decision-making process to get vaccinated. The nurses also outline steps other nurses can take to become vaccine ambassadors—individuals who actively engage with the community to share accurate and timely information on the COVID-19 vaccine and local vaccination efforts.

We also hear from nurses about how the vaccine was rolled out in their communities and how it’s being received. The speakers share behavioral techniques to build confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine, emphasizing how trust and empathy are crucial to the process and the role of community partnerships in vaccine distribution.

The final episode will be released in the upcoming weeks. This episode will focus on how to be a trusted messenger.

To stay up to date with our podcast series and listen to full episodes, visit the PA Action Coalition website.

“At the Core of Care” is also available on most podcast streaming services, including Apple, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Mankikar is senior program manager, National Nurse-Led Care Consortium

Gonnella is senior director of strategic initiatives, National Nurse-Led Care Consortium

Davood is the Pennsylvania Action Coalition coordinator, National Nurse-Led Care Consortium

The post Nursing Podcast Series Building Vaccine Confidence 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.

How do newly settled refugees and immigrants in Pennsylvania get health care? That’s a question the Pennsylvania Action Coalition – a state arm of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action — takes on in its podcast, At the Core of Care.

Over two episodes, Refugee Healthcare Up Close (Part One: Erie and Part Two: Lancaster) Sarah Hexem Hubbard, executive director of the Pennsylvania Action Coalition, who hosts the episodes, speaks with nurses and other community stakeholders collaborating to address public health issues for people newly arrived to the United States from other countries.

“We’ll hear from nurses about the enormity of the responsibility they feel to deliver effective, culturally congruent care to patients who’ve endured so much,” Hexem Hubbard said. The National Institutes of Health defines culturally congruent care as a “process through which providers and clients create an appropriate fit between professional practice and what patients and families need and want in the context of relevant cultural domains.”

Hexem Hubbard speaks with a nurse practitioner, a licensed practical nurse, a physician, a chief executive officer and an executive director from three community health centers in Lancaster, Pa., who are each working to better serve the growing refugee population. Here are a few of their perspectives:

Jacqueline Brysacz, CRNP, MPH, who has worked at the Lancaster Health Center for the past two years, thinks it would be helpful to have more refugees delivering patient care. “Something that I also hope for, at least in our community, is more folks from the immigrant refugee communities becoming nurses, becoming physicians. Because then they’re sort of like a conduit to their community like oh no that is a good clinic. You can go there, and you know there’s someone from your community that can sort of help translate what might be going on and help sort of build trust in that community,” she said.

Alisa Jones, the CEO of the Lancaster Health Center, shares the same sentiment. Having refugees on staff is critical to delivering effective and culturally congruent care. She also believes that providers without lived experiences can empathize with their patients. “It all starts with looking at ourselves first…We’ve all had moments where we feel alone…Where we feel as though no one could possibly understand what we’re feeling right now. We feel that people have made judgments about us that are so wrong. So regardless of how you had that experience, when you can tap into that feeling – even though it doesn’t feel great – that is the feeling that many of our patients feel every day, all day.”

Isary Plaza, LPN, who serves as a practice manager at the Lancaster Heath Center, decided to go into nursing partly from her early healthcare experiences in Lancaster. “This is my career because I want to help people. I want to make sure that everyone – whether they speak English, Spanish, or Nepali. Doesn’t matter what language, where they come from. I want to make sure that they have the best care possible. And that’s actually one of the reasons I work here at Lancaster Health Center because we serve such a diverse population. And to me I feel like we serve the patients that need us the most. And it’s amazing and fulfilling.”

Learn more about this groundbreaking podcast series highlighting Pennsylvania nurses in September 2019 and listen Refugee Healthcare Up-Close, Part 2: Lancaster here.  At the Core of Care  is available on Apple Podcast and other podcast platforms.

The Campaign for Action is an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with volunteer state organizations in nearly all states.

The post Nursing Podcast Series Focuses on Refugee Healthcare appeared first on Campaign for Action.

The post How Closely Do Pennsylvania’s RN Graduates Reflect the State’s Diversity? appeared first on Campaign for Action.

Credit: DarrenTownsend

To increase the number of nurses with BSNs and diversify the nursing workforce in Pennsylvania, the state nurses association is in the process of creating a charter high school that will offer specialized courses in nursing.

Pennsylvania State Nurses Association Chief Executive Officer Betsy Snook tells Penn Live Patriot-News that the idea of the charter school stems from the 2010 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

The charter school will be modeled after the Rhode Island Nurses Institute Middle College, the only nurses charter school of its kind in the country.

If the proposal is approved, the Pennsylvania Nurses Middle College Charter School will open in September 2020.

Read more

The post Nursing Charter High School Proposed in Pennsylvania appeared first on Campaign for Action.

Season One Launches Thursday, September 12

The Pennsylvania Action Coalition is excited to announce “At the Core of Care,” a new podcast series that highlights the creative efforts of nurses and their partners to meet the health and health care needs of patients, families, and communities. “At the Core of Care” weaves together themes of diversity, leadership, and practice innovation in nursing, while staying focused on the consumer experience.

Through four episodes, those at the core of care tell the stories of different health care situations, including sexual assault nurse examiners; breastfeeding clients from the Philadelphia Nurse-Family partnership; nurses as they attempt to ease state restrictions on the profession; and those involved in home care for medically complex children.

The stories are based in Pennsylvania but tell a much bigger story about important trends shaping health and health care across America.

It was an amazing experience to sit down and speak with so many incredible people about the work they do and how nursing impacts their lives. Here’s a preview of what to expect in the first season:

Episode 1: Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners

This episode takes a look at sexual assault nurse examiners in Pennsylvania. Few health care providers are trained to do this work, which requires a timely and skilled response that addresses physical and mental health. Examiners must also be trained on the forensic and legal component so they can collect evidence that can hold up in court. An innovative program out of Penn State University, the SAFE-T Center closes a gap in services by also offering telehealth support for medical practices in rural and underserved areas.

Episode 2: Breastfeeding Support at the Philadelphia Nurse-Family Partnership

The Philadelphia Nurse-Family Partnership is an evidence-based home visiting program that serves new mothers and families. They offer support for new mothers who are struggling with breastfeeding. In this episode we hear from nurses and the moms who were in this program about their challenges, and how their nurse helped them.

Episode 3: The Fight for Full Practice Authority in Pennsylvania

 Nurse practitioners are educated and trained to provide primary care services, but state law creates barriers for them to care for patients. Pennsylvania has some of the best nursing schools in the country. Why doesn’t the state allow graduates to practice to the full extent of their education? Nurse practitioners across Pennsylvania have fought for years to modernize the state’s nursing law. In this episode, we speak to nurses as they gather in Harrisburg to meet with lawmakers and advocate for themselves and their patients at the Pennsylvania Coalition of Nurse Practitioners’ Lobby Day.

Episode 4: Pediatric Home Care for Medically Complex Children

This episode focuses on the unique challenges of pediatric home care for medically complex children. Retaining nurses in this complex field can be difficult. This episode takes us to Lancaster County, Penn., and features one of the most interesting interviews of the series with a nurse who was inspired to pursue her nursing education because she is also the mother of a child who needs 24-hour care. She works tirelessly as a nurse, mother, and advocate for families like her own through the Technology Assisted Children’s Home Program.

The “At the Core of Care” podcast series is an initiative of the Pennsylvania Action Coalition. Funding is provided by AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action Innovations Fund. The Pennsylvania Action Coalition is partnering with Kouvenda Media, a social change multimedia production company, to facilitate all interviews with project partners who will be featured in the podcast series. The Pennsylvania Action Coalition is housed in the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium, a subsidiary of the Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC).

Please subscribe today on your favorite podcast app, and listen to the full first season.

Links:

Pennsylvania Action Coalition

Preview

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

Stitcher

SoundCloud

The post Groundbreaking Nursing Podcast Series Highlights Pennsylvania Nurses appeared first on Campaign for Action.