State of Nursing Education and Proposed Solutions
Think Tank
State of Nursing Education and Proposed Solutions Think Tank Executive Summary
Florida Center for Nursing
Headquar tered at the University of South Florida College of Nursing 12901 Bruce B Downs Blvd , MDC 22 Tampa, FL 33612
R e p o r t P re p a re d B y:
M a r a R a g g i
PhD(c) , MSN , RNC-NIC , PHN , NE-BC
Director ofHealthCare Research , Florida Center for Nursing
R a y n a L e t o u r n e a u PhD , RN
Executive Director , Florida Center for Nursing
Associate Professor , University ofSouthFlorida College ofNursing
Report Citation Information:
Florida Center for Nursing State of
Florida Center for Nursing (2024). Nursing Education and ProposedSolutions ThinkTankExecutive Summary Tampa, FL
If you require this report in an alternative format, please contact the Florida Center for Nursing at flcenterfornursing@usf.edu
Special thanks to the organizations that hosted Florida Center for Nursing’s StateofNursing EducationandProposedSolutionsThinkTankregional workshops: Florida State University, Valencia College, and University of Miami.
Additionally, the Florida Center for Nursing extends gratitude to each StateofNursingEducationand ProposedSolutionsThinkTankparticipant for engaging in the regional workshops and for providing
enriched the discussions and will undoubtedly enhance the overall success of the Florida Center for Nursing’s strategic endeavors.
The Florida Center for Nursing (FCN) was established in 2001 to address issues of supply and demand for nurses, including issues of recruitment, retention, and utilization of nursing workforce resources (Florida Statute §464.0195). The vision of FCN is to ensure that the health care needs of the residents and visitors of Florida are met by a competent and
Consistent with Florida Statute §464.0195(2)(c), in 2023, FCN offered workshops to convene various groups representative of nurses, other health care providers, business and industry partners, consumers, lawmakers, and educators to:
• review and comment on nursing education data analysis prepared by the Florida Center for Nursing and
• recommend systemic changes and outline strategies for implementation of changes.
The Florida Center for Nursing’s StateofNursingEducationandProposedSolutionsThink Tankwas an innovative program designed to convene these various groups to review and Florida’sNursingEducation ProgramReportfor academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.
During Think Tank strategic break-out sessions, participants were assigned the goal of identifying strategies that can increase the number of nursing faculty and clinical preceptors outlined critical challenges surrounding the nursing faculty and mentoring, workload, and compensation.
Increasing and enhancing the nursing faculty and clinical preceptor workforce involves
Strengths of the nursing workforce include opportunities to achieve and sustain a workforce
The National Academy of Medicine’s FutureofNursing2020-2030:ChartingaPathtoAchieveHealthEquityreport
recommended ensuring a nursing workforce that reflects the people and communities for whom they care. Representation matters in improving quality of care and patient outcomes for all. Participants in Florida Center for Nursing’s StateofNursingEducationandProposed SolutionsThinkTankconsidered factors related to nursing students, faculty, and workforce.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) develops the NCLEX to test the competency of nursing program graduates in the United States and Canada. The NCLEX is a variable-length, valid, and reliable computerized adaptive test to measure nursing competence. The passing standards for the NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN reflect the amount of nursing knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to practice competently at the entry level of the profession. Prelicensure nursing programs are the pipeline to the nursing workforce.
nursing positions may result in decreased access to quality and safe nursing care for the people of Florida. Therefore, the Florida Center for Nursing requested StateofNursing EducationandProposedSolutionsThinkTankparticipants to deliberate and identify strategies to improve Florida’s NCLEX pass rates.
M e t h o d
StateofNursingEducationandProposed SolutionsThinkTankthree times in 2023. Workshops were conducted across the northern, central, and southern regions of the state to allow participants throughout the entire state to review and comment. The dates and locations of each workshop are listed below:
• February 7, 2023, at Florida State University, Tallahassee
• June 8, 2023, at Valencia College, Orlando
• October 19, 2023, at University of Miami, Coral Gables
Florida’sNursingEducationProgramReportfor academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 were shared with participants. Workshop participants reviewed and commented on nursing education data analysis prepared by the Florida Center for Nursing. Lastly, participants recommended systemic changes and outlined strategies for implementation of changes to increase the number of nursing faculty and clinical preceptors in Florida, increase the nursing workforce in Florida, and improve Florida’s NCLEX pass rates. Feedback and recommendations to guide strategic actions were collected.
Participation at the regional StateofNursingEducationandProposedSolutionsThinkTank included people representative of various groups across Florida and included nurses, other health care providers, business and industry partners, health care consumers, lawmakers, and educators. Date
2/7/2023 Florida State University 76
6/9/2023
10/19/2023 University of Miami 41
Nurses were eligible to claim continuing education credits for attending the Florida Center for Nursing’s StateofNursingEducationandProposedSolutionsThinkTank.A total of 120 continuing education units were awarded to nurses demonstrating their development of new
in the following tables identify barriers and recommendations provided by the Florida Center for Nursing’s StateofNursingEducationandProposedSolutionsThink Tank scholarly literature (Institute of Medicine, 2011; American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Florida’s citizens, visitors, and nursing workforce. These insights will inform the statewide strategic plan for the nursing workforce.
• Lack of faculty training, preparation, and mentoring
• Workplace culture and bullying
• Time pressure and scarce resources
• Some faculty lack teaching skills
•
• Salary for faculty is much lower than salary for clinicians
• Faculty retention
• Improve collaboration and spread best practices
• Provide s transitioning to the role of nursing faculty
• Standardize faculty requirements for employment by program across the state
• Provide professional development of new faculty and part-time faculty
o
• Develop a “faculty campaign” to promote faculty employment
• Promote work-life balance
• Establish, develop, and standardize professional role identity for the academic practice role
• Promote academic fellowship at the state level using an model
• Create a “shared faculty” program
• Create academic/leadership internship programs
• Allow BSN-prepared nurses to teach clinical courses
• -practice partnerships
o Consider h
o Consider in-
• Increase faculty salaries through Title VIII
• Increase funds for faculty
• Continue with faculty development, such as the Florida Center for Nursing’s Shaping the Future: Becoming Nursing Faculty activity
• Research
o The Florida Center for Nursing collects, analyzes, and reports nursing education program data annually, including institutional faculty data (e.g., faculty counts, faculty vacancies, highest degree held by faculty, and faculty age).
• Encourage and coordinate the development of academic-practice partnerships
• nurse faculty
• Shaping the Future: Becoming Nursing Faculty
o nursing faculty for nurses that may be interested in this vital career path.
• available preceptors
• Create academic-practice partnerships with contractual agreement
• Support faculty scholar programs that allow a full-time role to be half clinical and half academic (e.g., clinical scholar role, AdventHealth hybrid role)
• Provide formalized training for clinical preceptors
• Allow clinical preceptors to seamlessly transition to
• Provide clinical preceptors with access to the university library system
• Offer a tuition waiver for preceptors
• Consider preceptor pay models and incentive pay for preceptors
• Provide well-being and mental health programs
• Collect, analyze, and report data on nurse employment, retention, and distribution
• Encourage and coordinate the development of academic-practice partnerships
• Develop recommendations to increase clinical preceptors and promote advanced nurse education
• Develop best practices for the continuing education needs of clinical preceptors
• Recruitment of students by high school may be too late
• Barriers to becoming a nurse include family responsibilities, childcare, program admission requirements, standardized testing, and the cost of education
• Students who start earning a livable salary may not want to further advance their career
• Aim to reach younger students through school-based initiatives (e.g., Great American Teach-In and mini-nurse program)
•
• Partner with community recreational programs so they understand how nursing will impact their communities
• and available wraparound services
• Maintain curriculum standards but diversify based on geographic location
• Provide students with f apprenticeships
• Consider a systemic culture change in nursing
• FrontlineNursingPodcast
o Presented by the Florida Center for Nursing, FrontlineNursingis a podcast that recognizes the impact nurses have on our lives and our communities.
• Great American Teach-In
o The Great American Teachimpact on children. FCN provides resources to assist nurses with classroom presentations.
• Prelicensure Professional Networking Program (PPNP)
o PPNP provides nursing students with a platform for networking and promotes active engagement and a sense of community among students. Immersive care organizations. The PPNP offers prelicensure students the opportunity to gain health care system.
• Regional differences regarding percentage of accredited programs
• Length of time from graduation to test taking
• Language barriers
• Education program variation (e.g., class size, number of faculty, proportion of
• Lack of resources dedicated to student success
• Provide student-centered education that addresses diversity
• Promote dedicated educational units (DEUs)
• Utilize NCLEX success coaches in prelicensure nursing education programs
• Provide additional support and resources to faculty because support of faculty impacts students’ success
• Increase best practices, such as simulation, to support learning infrastructure
• prelicensure nursing education programs
• Encourage oversight of nursing education programs by the Florida Board of Nursing to ensure quality of nursing education in the State of Florida
• Conduct a statistically valid, annual evaluation of nursing education programs in the
• Encourage and coordinate the development of academic-practice partnerships
• Support nurse faculty employment and advancement
• Convene various groups representative of nurses, other health care providers, business and industry, consumers, lawmakers, and educators to review and comment on data analysis prepared for the center and recommend systemic changes, including strategies for implementation of recommended changes
American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) (2024). FactSheet:EnhancingDiversity intheNursingWorkforce . https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/0/PDFs/FactSheets/Enhancing-Diversity-Factsheet.pdf
Florida Center for Nursing (2022). FloridaNursingEducationReport,AcademicYear20202021 . Tampa, FL.
https://www.flcenterfornursing.org/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/API/Entries/D ownload?Command=Core_Download&EntryId=1919&PortalId=0&TabId=151
Florida Center for Nursing (2023). FloridaNursingEducationReport,AcademicYear20212022 . Tampa, FL.
https://www.flcenterfornursing.org/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/API/Entries/D ownload?Command=Core_Download&EntryId=1925&PortalId=0&TabId=151
National Academy of Medicine (previously the Institute of Medicine [IOM]) (2011).TheFuture ofNursing . National Academies Press.