Newswise — In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. This report, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), issued eight recommendations to: improve nursing education and training, practice, leadership, and workforce planning:

• Remove scope-of-practice barriers.• Expand opportunities for nurses to lead and diffuse collaborative improvement efforts.• Implement nurse residency programs.• Increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80 percent by 2020. • Double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020. • Ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning.•Prepare and enable nurses to lead change to advance health.•Build an infrastructure for the collection and analysis of inter-professional health care workforce data.

Penn Nursing researchers are available to discuss the progress of the recommendations, specifically:

Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN: Diversity•Lisa Lewis, PhD, RN, FAAN: Diversity•Margo Brooks Carthon, PhD, RN, FAAN: Diversity•Linda Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN: Scope of Practice•Ann O’Sullivan, PhD, FAAN, CRNP: Scope of Practice•Julie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN: Doctorate Education•Julie Sochalski, PhD, FAAN, RN: Doctorate Education•Kathy Burke, PhD, RN, CENP, FAAN: Nurse Residency Program