One key focus of the consortium, which includes leaders from Aurora Health Care, Covenant Healthcare System, Inc., Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is to identify creative strategies to redesign nurses' roles and work environments to alleviate the nursing shortage in Wisconsin. The conference is co-sponsored by Aurora, Covenant, Marquette, UWM and the Faye McBeath Foundation. The conference is intended to generate creative solutions to address current and future workforce issues in health care. Nurses at the conference will also discuss methods to optimize nurses' unique contributions to health care, describe methods to promote collaboration between practice and academics, and create a vision for a comprehensive initiative to redesign nursing practice and education in Wisconsin. More than 200 nurses attended the Nursing Consortium's first conference. A number of specific proposals to develop creative innovations in nursing practice and education that would minimize the impact of the nursing shortage grew out of last year's conference. The Faye McBeath Foundation and the sponsoring organizations provided funding for a number of pilot projects during the past year, most involving collaboration between academic and healthcare organizations. Those redesign projects will be showcased at this year's event. The Nursing Consortium was formed more than a year ago to enable local organizations to work together collaboratively on issues related to nursing workforce development. Kathleen Potempa, dean and professor of the School of Nursing, at Oregon Health Science University, and Melanie Dreher, dean and professor of the College of Nursing, University of Iowa will be featured speakers. Their discussions will focus on innovative alliances to promote nursing redesign, service and education and partnerships. "As caring nurses, we need to transcend competition," said Madeline Wake, a member of the Nursing Consortium Steering Committee. Wake is provost of Marquette University, and former dean of Marquette University’s School of Nursing. The other two members of the steering committee are health system executives, Susan Ela, Senior Clinical Vice President, Aurora Health Care, and Pat Schroeder, Senior Vice President for Clinical Performance and Chief Nursing Officer at Covenant Healthcare System, Inc., and Marilyn Meyer Bratt, a clinical assistant professor of nursing, at Marquette serves as project director for the Consortium. "We knew that the way we’ve done things for years wouldn’t be adequate for moving forward because we don’t have enough people to do things the way we always have," says Ela. "We knew we had to look for innovative approaches to the actual work of nursing." "This is a very serious concern that could become a public health risk," says Schroeder. "This is not just a nursing issue; this is a public policy issue." "The projects that were sponsored by the consortium are exquisite models of creative partnerships that bridge the interface between service and academe with the shared goal of improving health outcomes for the residents of Wisconsin," says Bratt. The scope of the problem is huge and the potential impact on the aging population dramatic, the nursing consortium members say.
Office of Public Affairs
©2000 Marquette University |
