What is the IOM?

• The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public.

• The IOM asks and answers the nation’s most pressing questions about health and health care.

What does the IOM do?

• They help others make informed health decisions by providing evidence upon which they can rely.

• Conduct research based on congressional mandates or requests by federal agencies and independent organizations.

• Host expert consensus committees and convenes forums, roundtables, and committees, to facilitate discussion, discovery, and critical, cross-disciplinary thinking.

Environment and Nursing

According to the IOM future of nursing report nurses “…practice in many settings, including hospitals, schools, homes, retail health clinics, long-term care facilities, battlefields, and community and public health centers...”

Why the Future of Nursing Report?

• The nursing profession is the largest segment of the nation’s health care workforce.

• Working on the front lines of patient care, nurses can play a vital role in helping realize the objectives set forth in the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

• A number of barriers prevent nurses from being able to respond effectively to rapidly changing health care settings and an evolving health care system.

Breaking down the Report

• Accessing primary care: barriers to Nurse Practitioners practice

• Focus on Education

• Focus on scope of practice

• Report recommendation

Accessing Primary Care:Barriers to Nursing

Focus on Education

• There is a need for highly educated nurses

• We need an improved education system– Nursing curricula need to be reexamined,

updated, and adaptive enough to change with patients’ changing needs and improvements in science and technology.

• Entrance into the profession

Focus on Scope of Practice

• The problem: Inconsistent State Regulations

• The current conflicts between what Advanced Practice RNs can do based on their education and training and what they may do according to state and federal regulations must be resolved.

• Scope-of-practice regulations in all states should reflect the full extent not only of nurses but of each profession’s education and training.

Report Recommendation: 4 key messages of the report

• Nurses should practice to the full extent of their education and training.

• Nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system.

• Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health care professionals, in redesigning health care in the United States.

• Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and information infrastructure.

Conclusion

• The United States has the opportunity to transform its health care system.

• The recommendations presented in the IOM report are directed to:– individual policy makers– national, state, and local government leaders– Tax payers– health care researchers, executives, and professionals– licensing bodies– educational institutions– philanthropic organizations – consumer advocacy organizations

References

• http://www.iom.edu/