About the Jonas Center: Overview
NURSING: A PROFESSION IN CRISIS IS A CRISIS FOR EVERYONEJust as more people will need healthcare, there will be fewer skilled nurses to provide it. The Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence has stepped forward to make a positive impact on the future of the nursing workforce.
A sizable segment of the population is aging into senior citizenship, with rising incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases. Changing demographics require a nursing workforce that reflects a diverse society and provides culturally appropriate care, responding to the realities of health disparities.
As a result, the U.S. confronts a serious nursing shortage, with best estimates projecting a minimum shortfall of hundreds of thousands of nurses in the next 15 years. This is due to a convergence of factors, including an acute faculty shortage, which restricts enrollment of future nurses; an aging nurse workforce; and high job turnover due to burnout caused by demanding work conditions, insufficient staffing and strenuous physical work.
A VOICE FOR AN ESSENTIAL PROFESSION
Against this backdrop, the Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund established the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, a groundbreaking program that deploys philanthropy in novel and traditional ways to advance the nursing profession.
The Jonas Center works closely with powerhouses in nursing practice and education, public health and philanthropy on innovative grant programs in New York City and beyond. Such partners include: New York University, Columbia University, City University of New York, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, the Urban Institute, the National League of Nursing, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Perhaps the most significant indicator of the success of these partnerships is that grantees have leveraged an additional $3 million in funding from other organizations because the Jonas Center grant helped them establish their programs’ viability and credibility.
Who Will Care for Me?
Under its 2006 inaugural program, Who Will Care for Me?, the Jonas Center awarded grants designed to promote nurse recruitment and retention, advance racial and ethnic diversity among nurses, improve practice settings and support innovative nursing practice models. Grants averaging $300,000 over three years were awarded to 12 new partnerships between academic institutions and practice settings.
The Jonas Nursing Scholars Program
Faculty development is crucial to ensure appropriate education and training for the next generation of nurses. In 2008 alone, faculty capacity issues contributed to nursing schools turning away nearly 50,000 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate programs.
In response, the Jonas Center created the Jonas Nursing Scholars Program in 2008, a unique initiative to educate nursing doctoral students and encourage models for joint faculty appointments between nursing schools and clinical affiliates.
The program’s first $2.25 million in grants were awarded to four academic institutions, encompassing six of the nation’s leading nursing schools with numerous clinical affiliations.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Building on this success and in response to the ongoing shortage of nursing faculty, the Jonas Center has refined its focus to concentrate on faculty development.
Launching this spring, the Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program – the Center’s first national initiative – is designed to increase the number of doctoral-prepared nurse educators and leaders. Through a $20,000 stipend per student that is matched by nursing schools, the program will support 50 scholars by 2012 with a goal of reaching 100 scholars. Program partners include the National League for Nursing and The John A. Hartford Foundation.
In addition, the Jonas Distinguished Lecture Series, a new partnership with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, will train Master’s-level clinical nurse leaders to serve as much-needed adjunct faculty in a number of New York area schools. Approximately 50 nurses from the program will fill such positions in 2010 alone.
PRESSING ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR PARTNERSHIP
The Jonas Center has advanced many of its original goals in a short time, committing more than $6 million to nurse workforce issues. But much more support is needed – in the form of innovative philanthropy, strong voices from all sectors willing to “champion” the profession, and nursing educators and clinical settings interested in replicating and adapting the best practices developed by Jonas Center grantees. The Jonas Center seeks collaborators from all sectors to continue the important work underway, helping guarantee that there is sufficient faculty to educate future professionals and, most important, no one need wonder Who Will Care for Me?