ATLANTA — More than 100 leaders in nursing education will gather here at the annual meeting of the SREB Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing on October 7-9 to determine how to raise awareness of the critical shortage of registered nurses in the region and the nation — and the faculty to train them.
Bringing together deans, directors and faculty from nursing schools in the 16 SREB states and the District of Columbia, the meeting will focus on policy decisions, state and federal funding, marketing and other efforts to help meet the exploding demand for registered nurses that is expected as the population ages and health care needs expand.
By some estimates, the shortage could grow to more than one million nurses nationwide by 2020. SREB states and the District of Columbia alone are projected to have nearly 40,000 job openings for RNs every year through 2014, according to a recent Council report. Yet a Council survey found that more than 26,000 qualified students were denied admission to collegiate nursing programs in the region in 2006, mainly because of a lack of nursing faculty and clinical training facilities.
"The South cannot solve the registered nursing shortage without solving the serious nursing faculty shortage," said Eula Aiken, executive director of the Council. "Until states make creating more nursing faculty a priority, applicants will continue to be turned away."
Increasing the number of nursing faculty will be a major focus of the meeting. Participants will hear from national and regional experts including Joan M. Lord, SREB vice president of Education Policies, who will discuss shaping public policy and how to send messages to key state policy-makers who make health care decisions; Dennis O’Leary, president of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, who will explore how to make nursing education a greater public priority; and Annette Debisette, director of the Division of Nursing, Bureau of Health Professions, U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources, who will look at challenges and opportunities in federal funding to increase the number of nurse educators.
A leading advocate for nursing education for more than 40 years, the SREB Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing works to expand and strengthen schools of nursing at colleges and universities throughout the region, develops strategies to expand enrollment, and tracks current legislation on nursing issues. Its members include representatives from regionally accredited colleges and universities that provide programs of study leading to an undergraduate or graduate degree in nursing.
The media is invited to attend the Council meeting. For more information about the meeting and the nursing shortage, contact SREB Communications.
SREB, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, advises state education leaders on ways to improve education. SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Each is represented by its governor and four gubernatorial appointees.
