The Future of Nursing explores how nurses' roles, responsibilities, and education should change significantly to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by health care reform and to advance improvements in America's increasingly complex health system. At more than 3 million in number, nurses make up the single largest segment of the health care work force. They also spend the greatest amount of time in delivering patient care as a profession. Nurses therefore have valuable insights and unique abilities to contribute as partners with other health care professionals in improving the quality and safety of care as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) enacted this year. Nurses should be fully engaged with other health professionals and assume leadership roles in redesigning care in the United States. To ensure its members are well-prepared, the profession should institute residency training for nurses, increase the percentage of nurses who attain a bachelor's degree to 80 percent by 2020, and double the number who pursue doctorates. Furthermore, regulatory and institutional obstacles-including limits on nurses' scope of practice-should be removed so that the health system can reap the full benefit of nurses' training, skills, and knowledge in patient care. In this book, the Institute of Medicine makes recommendations for an action-oriented blueprint for the future of nursing.

New graduate nurses encounter "transition shock" when they enter the workplace, especially in acute care settings such as hospitals. New graduate nurses have a difficult time transitioning into the work environment because they are unprepared by their academic training for the realities they will face and they often don't have the proper support in place to guide them through the transition. This leads to a high attrition rate of up to 30% within the first 18 months of employment which costs hospitals and health care facilities. High nurse turnover of new graduate nurses who aren't prepared for the complexities of clinical practice affect the quality of care provided. Patient outcomes are negatively affected because it often leaves hospitals dealing with a shortage of experienced nurses, which they compensate for by having high patient to nurse ratios. New graduate nurses must develop the necessary critical thinking skills to handle higher acuity patients and difficult situations, develop confidence in their clinical skills, and adapt to peer relationships. One solution to the "transition shock" that new graduate nurses face is the implementation of nurse residency programs. Nurse residency programs are shown to help new graduates have a better transition into the workplace and increase nurse retention. This paper discusses the problem of new graduate nurse turnover, the benefits of nurse residency programs, and the numerous research studies which have been done showing the success of nurse residency programs on new nurse graduate retention and job satisfaction. It also discusses how to implement a nurse residency program and monitor and evaluate its success.

In the past several years, a revival of research devoted to nursing education has emerged. This emergence has changed the way many educators engage in their practice of working with learners; and learners have come to expect that they will have a rich learning experience designed to develop new (or enhance prior) knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The SAGE Handbook of Nursing Education provides a detailed map of the current discipline, with a carefully selected team of international contributors offering the latest thinking about education in nursing across key areas. This handbook will be a key resource for academic educators, as well as graduate and postgraduate learners.

In this comprehensive resource, nursing staff development expert Jim Hansen, MSN, RN-BC, provides instruction and tools to plan, justify, and structure a nurse residency program that develops and retains new nurses through their first year

The newly graduated nurse remains at high risk for leaving the nursing profession within the first year of entering the nursing workforce. Evidence based studies have reported that some medical centers report retention rates of only 55% in their first year of employment for the newly graduated nurse. Additional evidence based practice have also reported that 31% of these nurses intend to leave the nursing profession in the first three months of employment. This continues to enhance the nursing shortage issue that places the current nursing workforce at risk for burnout which can cause errors that lead to an increase risk for patient safety. Hospitals that have adopted the nurse residency program have reported retention rates of 89% in the first year of employment (Hillman and Foster, 2011). The information provided in this paper will review the evidence based articles that have researched the success of nurse residency programs for the newly graduated nurses. Along with the success of these programs this article will propose a similar plan to implement an equally successful plan to be initiated into nurse residency programs. The goal of this type of program is to reduce the rate of turnover among the newly graduated nurse by providing them a working unit that enhances their education after graduating their nursing programs. The cost of a unit in this nature will also be reviewed along with reports of retention rates for medical centers that have implemented a program similar in nature.

Nurses make up the largest segment of the health care profession, with 3 million registered nurses in the United States. Nurses work in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, public health centers, schools, and homes, and provide a continuum of services, including direct patient care, health promotion, patient education, and coordination of care. They serve in leadership roles, are researchers, and work to improve health care policy. As the health care system undergoes transformation due in part to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the nursing profession is making a wide-reaching impact by providing and affecting quality, patient-centered, accessible, and affordable care. In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, which made a series of recommendations pertaining to roles for nurses in the new health care landscape. This current report assesses progress made by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/AARP Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action and others in implementing the recommendations from the 2010 report and identifies areas that should be emphasized over the next 5 years to make further progress toward these goals.