Mitigating Knowledge Loss: A Strategic Imperative for Nurse Leaders.

With the aging of the nursing workforce and expected retirement of large numbers of experienced nurses in the next decade, mitigating the impact that lost knowledge will have on organizational performance and patient outcomes is critical. The authors raise awareness of the problem, summarize observations procured from hospital nurse executive regarding approaches for knowledge transfer through workforce development, and pose proactive strategies for nurse leaders who can provide direction to offset the issue before it becomes a crisis.

Toward standardization (Part 2): National nursing minimum data sets consensus building and implementation status.

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the development of a National Workforce Commission, multiple entities have increased their interest in collecting standardized health care workforce data at the state and national levels. In a tight budget environment, developing data sets which collect the minimum needed information that is necessary for workforce planning and supply/demand projections has become critically needed. This article represents the second of a two part series describing the work that the Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers has undertaken during the last 3 years toward standardizing nursing workforce data.

Toward standardization (part 1): assessment of state and national nursing workforce data sources.

Despite concerns expressed over the past 25 years, little progress has been made in improving the accuracy, availability, and timeliness of national data on the U.S. nursing workforce.

Commentary: experienced RN retention strategies: what can be learned from top-performing organizations.

The authors provide commentary on the article, "Experienced Nurse Retention Strategies: What Can Be Learned From Top-Performing Organizations," also in this issue by authors Hirschkorn, West, Hill, Cleary, and Hewlett.

Experienced nurse retention strategies: what can be learned from top-performing organizations.

Pursuit of high-quality care depends, in part, on hospital leaders' ability to retain an experienced RN workforce. Yet, 55% of nurses plan to retire between 2011 and 2020, heightening the need to identify proven retention strategies. Findings from 7 case studies conducted at hospitals and nonhealthcare organizations publicly recognized for success retaining experienced employees are summarized.

Expanding the capacity of nursing education.

Assuring a nurse workforce that is large enough and possesses the right competencies for the changing demographic and health reform scenarios of the early twenty-first century is nothing short of an imperative. Getting there will involve continual recruitment of a talented and diverse group of people and increasing nurses' progression to a more highly educated workforce, no matter where they enter the profession. These actions will enable the United States to fill vacant nursing faculty positions as we simultaneously re-create how nursing education is delivered in this country.

Mitigating knowledge loss: a strategic imperative for nurse leaders.

With the aging of the nursing workforce and expected retirement of large numbers of experienced nurses in the next decade, mitigating the impact that lost knowledge will have on organizational performance and patient outcomes is critical. The authors raise awareness of the problem, summarize observations procured from hospital nurse executive regarding approaches for knowledge transfer through workforce development, and pose proactive strategies for nurse leaders who can provide direction to offset the issue before it becomes a crisis.

Educational mobility of RNs in North Carolina: who will teach tomorrow's nurses? A report on the first study to longitudinally examine educational mobility among nurses.

Objective: Affected by the current nursing shortage, schools of nursing cite a lack of qualified nursing faculty as a primary barrier to program expansion. We sought to identify patterns in how nurses' entry-level degrees and other individual characteristics correlated with the timing and achievement of subsequent advanced nursing education.

Methods: Using longitudinal analysis of data gathered as part of North Carolina's licensing renewal process, we studied the educational mobility of newly graduated RNs with a variety of entry degrees in this state.