October 30, 2019 | NLN CEO Update on NLN Resources

Colleagues, let me start this Member Update with a difficult topic that has been prominent in the news in the past few years, that of sexual harassment and workplace inequity. I'm sure you agree with me that harassment and inequity of any kind have no place in the health care workplace; that women should have equitable opportunity, support, and compensation; and that we cannot address a problem without understanding its scope and impact.

TIME'S UP

We have been asked by the American Nurses Association to spread the word about TIME'S UP Healthcare (TUH), an initiative of TIME'S UP that advocates for safe, dignified, and equitable work in health care institutions. TUH is seeking a range of signatory organizations — nursing and other health professional schools, health systems, and health-related institutions — that employ at least 100 health care workers and commit to supporting the core tenets of equity and safety. If that is you, colleagues — if your school or partner health care organization is large enough — I hope you will read further about Time's Up Health Care and consider becoming a signatory. As you well know, nurses have stories to tell, and we can be an enormous force for good when our collective voices are heard.

Caregiver Resources

Now let me tell you about some other NLN initiatives and resources that are particularly appropriate for November, which is just around the corner. November is National Family Caregivers Month and a good time to alert you to a new component in our Advancing Care Excellence for Vulnerable Populations (ACE) series: ACE.C, Advancing Care Excellence for Caregivers. In collaboration with AARP and with generous funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation, the NLN has completed five teaching strategies, including one titled "Supporting Millennials Providing Care for an Older Adult," authored by a postdoctoral scholar at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing Family Caregiving Institute who is herself a caregiver. We are now piloting three unfolding cases and will conduct two free webinars after the cases are posted early in 2020. We are truly excited about this offering to our schools and beyond.

Veterans Resources

Then there is ACE.V, Advancing Care Excellence for Veterans, an appropriate resource for Veterans Day, coming up on November 11. ACE.V emerged as the NLN contribution to the Obama-Biden initiative known as Joining Forces. With generous support provided by Laerdal Medical, we created unfolding cases, teaching resources, and tools for nurse educators to access in preparing nurses to care for veterans and family members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and a host of related physical, mental health, and social ills associated with combat. The authors of the excellent ACE.V unfolding cases and teaching strategies are nurse educators who are either veterans themselves or work with veterans.

Indeed, many of our NLN members are veterans, and many of you continue to serve in the US Military Reserve or National Guard. We can't thank you enough for your service. And now, amidst our ongoing faculty shortage, your ranks will be expanding as former military nurse officers take on a faculty role. Last year in September, the NLN posted a toolkit, "Nursing Leaders in the Military Serving as Faculty," that is designed to help institutions avoid the pitfalls and maximize the opportunities in recruiting and mentoring military nurse officers for a second career in academia. Authored by Drs. Patricia Allen, Myrna Armstrong (a colonel in the US Army Reserve, retired), and Donna Lake (a colonel in the US Air Force Nurse Corp, retired), this toolkit offers practical guidance for managing the processes of recruitment, hiring, and assimilation through the examination of schools of nursing requirements, norms, and expectations. All types of academic and practice institutions will find it useful. And every time we can do something to elevate our colleagues who are or have served in the military, we know we are doing the right thing.

Another trend that you have undoubtedly encountered is the presence on campus of nursing student veterans. The November-December issue of Nursing Education Perspectives, the NLN research journal, offers four articles that are of great interest for schools of nursing. Dr. Kelly Dyar offers "Veterans as Students in Higher Education: A Scoping Review" to determine characteristics of veterans as students. Drs. Teresa Shellenbarger and Julie Decker, in "Understanding the Experiences of Nursing Student Veterans," report on themes that emerged from interviews with nine veteran nursing students with recommendations for supporting these students. Drs. Barbara Patterson, Brenda Elliott, and Katie Chargualaf interviewed 11 students to better understand the process of transition to academia and recommend that faculty learn about the military culture as a first step in guiding students to success in nursing education; their Research Brief is titled "Discovering a New Purpose: Veterans' Transition to Nursing Education."

And in an Innovation Center article, "Providing Veterans With Innovative Nursing Educational Opportunities," Dr. Ruth Wittmann-Price, along with colleagues at Francis Marion University, report on a funded project that assisted veteran students to obtain a BSN by aligning the skills learned through military training with concepts and skills valued by professional nursing and taught to nursing students. The November-December issue of NEP is online now and a benefit of membership in the NLN. You can sign up to receive the electronic table of contents and subscribe to Published Ahead-of-Print email alerts or an RSS feed.

How wonderful it is that we are welcoming nurse veterans as faculty and so many other veterans as students and future nurses. As you continue your tradition of service, let me wish all of us a meaningful Veterans Day, for if you are not or have not been part of the military service, you are reaping the benefits given us by those who served. We owe our military colleagues so very much.

In Memoriam

Now to some sad news. Helen Connors, PhD, RN, FAAN, ANEF, who retired in 2014 after 35 years at the University of Kansas, died this past September. Dr. Connors was a pioneer in online education and early technology projects that led to the development of the Health Information and Technology Scholars (HITS) program, a HRSA-funded collaborative program involving the NLN with the University of Kansas, the University of Colorado, Indiana University, and Johns Hopkins University, to assist faculty to integrate technology in the curriculum.

Over the course of five years, the HITS program enrolled 265 faculty from 132 nursing schools in 43 states, and over the years these faculty have impacted untold numbers of other faculty and students. The collaborators — Helen and her colleagues Drs. Diane Skiba, Pamela Jeffries, Mary Anne Rizzolo, and Diane Billings — authored "Health Information Technology Scholars Program: From Implementation to Outcomes," published in Nursing Education Perspectives in 2017. Helen was also interviewed for a 2018 TEQ blog, "Exploring the World of Telehealth and Implications for Nursing Education." These publications will give you some idea of the breadth of Helen's intellect and curiosity. She was also a wonderful friend with a great sense of humor and is missed by the many people she touched during her incredible career.

I leave you now with best wishes for a happy and safe Halloween.