Innovations: Nursing Science, Education, Practice - University of ...

them from becoming frustrated.
The same situation exists in caring
for vulnerable populations. We teach
— very well — the skills needed, but
the graduates soon discover few systems
exist to pay for the care.
Both situations boil down to one
fact: nurses most often are invisible
in the medical payment system and
public policy. The public talks about
“the” hospital, “the” home-care program,
“the” nursing home, and “the”
physician. These are understood to
be fiscal units in care. Nurses are part
of these units, not recognized for
Maureen McCausland: I am also conc
e rned about not talking in any major
way about training tomorro w ’s clinical
managers and nurse executives.
For a long time, conventional wisdom
identified the MBA as the degre e
managers and executives needed. We
now know graduates need more .
Graduates need a skill set and knowledge
base to lead a professional discipline
that they might not learn in an
operations re s e a rch course examining
an industrial model. While re s e a rc h-
ing the education of nurse executives,
I recently interviewed a well-known
Norma Lang: The auto industry found
itself in a similar situation. For a long
time business and marketing people
received top priority in hiring and
everyone suddenly forgot that engineers
design the cars, that cars are a
piece of transportation, that the engineering
discipline makes substantive
additions. At the end of the day we
need both, and our profession now
knows this. A conference the
University of Pennsylvania School of
Nursing and the Health System
sponsored in June attracted 150 nurse
executives — 50 percent more than we
expected. Nurse leaders are hungry
for presentations on evidence-based
nursing, not only in clinical practice
but in nursing management practice.
Joyce Thompson: We need to change
our teaching methods in other ways
Maureen McCausland,
DNSc, FAAN, RN
their unique contribution to health.
If our work were understood better
by the policy makers and the physicians,
if they grasped the separate but
equally important roles we play, public
policy would be better informed
and collaboration would follow.
Joyce Thompson: Part of our educational
program has to be an understanding
of federal, state, and local
policy decisions that affect the socially
vulnerable and health care in general.
This means what happens on the
overt level in Washington as well as
lobbying efforts by groups such as
AARP, groups that exert tremendous
power. Our doctoral programs need
to give students the leadership skills
to serve in the House and Senate to
help shape our nation’s health-care
policies. This is essential to nursing,
as essential as being at the bedside.
That is the leadership focus for Penn
Nursing.
CEO who leads a large health maintenance
organization. “Now
M a u reen,” he said, “what we don’t
need is one more bean counter. Send
me a clinical leader who understands
e p i d e m i o l o g y, who understands what
patients and systems need.”
Just as the country needs nurse faculty
preparation, it also needs nursing
doctorates for executive practice
in health policy at the national level
in academic health systems. To meet
this need, nursing schools may need
to provide a series of well-orchestrated
experiences that complement the
classroom, instead of traditional
course work.
“The need for baccalaureate
nurses is becoming
more critical every day.
The shortage we are
facing is different from
any of the others in
the past.”
— MA U R E E N MCCA U S L A N D
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