Background: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Nursing, included recommendations to increase nurse diversity, the percent of nurses obtaining a bachelor's degree, and inter-professional education.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the progress toward achievement of these recommendations.
Methods: We used a longitudinal, multi-state data from four cohorts of nurses newly licensed in 2004 to 2005, 2007 to 2008, 2010 to 2011, and 2014 to 2015 to examine and compare the trends.
Finding: The percentage of males who became licensed increased, from 8.8% in 2004 to 2005 cohort to 13.6% in the 2014 to 2015 cohort. The percentage of white-non-Hispanic nurses who were licensed decreased from 78.9% in 2007 to 2008 to 73.8% in 2014 to 2015. These differences primarily reflect an increase in white-Hispanic nurses. More nurses are obtaining a bachelor's degree as their first professional degree, from 36.6% in 2004 to 2005 cohort to 48.5% in 2014 to 2015 cohort. About 40% of the 2014 to 2015 cohort reported that they learned to work in inter-professional teams. Collegial nurse-physician relations had an upward positive trajectory over time increasing almost 7%.
Discussion: The diversity and education of new nurses have increased, but are short of meeting the IOM recommendations.
Keywords: Health economics; Health professions education; Health services research; IOM report; Nursing; Workforce issues.
Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.