Table 1 Recommendations for Improving Nursing Education for Ethnic Minorities in the US
Recommendation | Audience | Level | Intended Results |
|---|---|---|---|
Mandate Nursing Programs to Meet EM Student Benchmarks: Unless mandates are established to compel nursing colleges to modify nursing education to specifically target educational and leadership advancement for EM nursing students and require them to report their progress in key performance indicators (KPIs) in order to remain accredited, there will be likely no improvement in the quality of EM nursing education and in EM nursing leadership advancement. | Nursing Education Administrators, Nursing Professional Societies and Nursing Program Accreditation Boards | Policy | • Increase the quality of nursing education and opportunities to build leadership skills in EM nursing students • Position statements on EM distribution should be revised and linked directly to KPIs • KPI’s could consider EM student transfers out of the program, EM student grade levels compared to other students, and other measures of EM student success |
Mandate Nursing Programs to Meet EM Faculty Benchmarks: As part of accreditation KPIs, require a set percentage of EM nursing faculty and EM nursing faculty leaders, and source these professionals from programs from EM nursing professional societies established for the express purpose of helping colleges fulfill this mandate. | Nursing Education Administrators, Nursing Professional Societies and Nursing Program Accreditation Boards | Policy and Community | • Increase EM nursing faculty and EM nursing faculty leadership • Provide a framework for establishing succession planning to maintain level of EM participation • Ensure that initiatives aimed at increasing EM nursing faculty and faculty leadership in nursing programs are not appropriated to particular job classes, titles, or sections, but are enacted program-wide • KPIs could consider percentage of EM faculty and faculty leaders, EM faculty and leadership attrition rates, EM faculty pay parity, as well as other metrics |
Empower Nursing Faculty with New Skills: Teach nursing faculty skills to counteract overt, covert and institutionalized racism in nursing education. | Nursing Educators and Nurse Education Leaders | Individual and Community | • Reduce discomfort in non-EM nursing educators in discussing white privilege and issues associated with institutionalized racism • Prevent tokenism and lone ranger status to EM faculty and students • Improve the quality of nursing education overall |
Reduce Barriers to EM Nursing Students: Reduce barriers to access educational programs aimed at increasing educational quality and leadership skills in EM nursing students. | Nursing Education Administrators and Nursing Professional Societies | Community | Increase the pool of qualified EM nursing applicants to nursing positions in all fields, including education and leadership |
Nursing Boards to Conduct Surveillance: Maintain national annual surveillance for key metrics associated with improving advancement for EM in nursing, nursing leadership, and nursing education | National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) | Policy | • Ensure that a central regulatory body (such as the NCSBN) conducts or supervises the conduct of routine surveillance to measure these metrics • Have the NCSBN establish and promote a minimal dataset of questions to be asked on state licensing applications that can be used for benchmarking progress annually toward EM-related initiatives |