The IMO Future of Nursing Report - Research Paper Example

The IOM report has put forth recommendations with regard to core areas of nursing among which nurses' education command greatest priority. What this vision document has envisaged in the field of nurses' education is the interest area of this paper, the specific recommendations of the IOM report being, 1) increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80% by 2020, 2) double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020, and 3) take steps to ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning (Hassmiller, 2010, p.7). As far as my career as a nursing professional is concerned, these recommendations have great value just because increasing my level of education will enhance my competence in the job market, where professional autonomy and high level competence are to go hand in hand in the future (Fights, 2012).

Keeping myself under a life-long learning regime will also help me fulfill the new and demanding roles that a nurse has to perform in modern health care scenario (Fights, 2012). As envisaged by the IOM report, for nurses to become a perfect workforce in terms of quality and quantity, the recommendations on nursing education are of paramount importance. As the nation is facing nurses' shortages, it is a contradiction that nursing schools owing to fund constraints, are rejecting “thousands of qualified applicants” (Linda, 2011, p.196). .

The practicing nurses are constrained by the difficult-to-practice provisions that require them to have “additional degrees” in order to get “faculty or APRN positions” (Linda, 2011, p.196). The ground reality being this, the IOM recommendations to increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80% by 2020, double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020 and make nurses engage in lifelong learning, are integral part of the real reform one is looking ahead of. This is also necessary just because 60% of the nurses in the workforce are now entering the profession with a n associate degree or even less academic qualification (Linda, 2011, p.196). Relaxing of procedures for working nurses to get additional degrees is also a part of the IOM package recommended (Linda, 2011, p.197). The benefits of a better educated nursing work force starts with enhanced “patient outcomes” and completes with a leadership role for nurses in the health care sectors (Linda, 2011, p.197). It is in this context researchers like Linda (2011) has called for the nursing education reform to shift “entry level nursing education […] entirely to the baccalaureate level” through mobilizing government funds (p.198). Equally important to educational reforms, is the necessity to engage the already employed nurses in a life long learning process (Kuehn, 2010, p.2345). This is not any more a luxury that a few can enjoy but a basic requirement for a health care system where nurses have to be full partners with physicians and take up a leadership role (Kuehn, 2010, p.2345). Nursing is a highly competitive professional environment in which every new recruit has to keep up to the challenging and changing demands of the