Development of a state health care system more or less influences each member of our society. Each hospital has its own jobs hierarchy with deans of the hospital at the top and nurses at its foundation. Nurses are essential and irreplaceable employees in each medical institution since they perform a great deal of functions: they look after patients, provide them with basic health care, report to doctors on the patients’ health condition etc.

The significance of a nursing workforce is obvious. Furthermore, it has been pointed out by the Institute of Medicine report “Future of Nursing.” According to Donna E. Shalala, Ph.D., chair of the Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the following conclusion from the report can be made. Nurses are going to be the main power in the medicine as they will be required to make sure that quality and safety standards are maintained. The paper issued by the Future of Nursing Campaign for action will literally change the medical hierarchy we are used to. The report covers such considerable issues as the scopes of practice of nurses, improvements in their education at all levels including baccalaureate and doctorate degrees, changing roles in the nature of a job so that nurses could deploy their skills as leaders effectively at each of the job levels, and the improvement in the quality of the work done in general.

As the report shows, Future of Nursing Advisory Committee is currently taking all the actions for nurses to become a level more qualified and provide exceptional customer care. They divided their labor resources into four task forces, which are practice, leadership, education, and workforce task forces. The report suggests different recommendations to each of these divisions that set definite objectives for the state of Arizona to train nurses properly. Hence, the intent of the Campaign for Action is to emphasize the importance of a nursing workforce and offer them enough opportunities to develop in their professional field. Consequently, a health care system will be perfected for all Americans by means of nurses’ hard work. It can also be stated that after the campaign began, a nursing workforce has officially become glue that sticks all the health care system together. Versatile stakeholders all over the US were brought together to solve the most crucial health care issues, which are lack of access to medical care for some of the US citizens, increasing cost of this medical care, and the quality that can be improved by the planned moderations. The data provided in the report also summarizes the progress of the implemented plan as to what has been done.

After publication of the IOM’s report, medical leaders and the nursing workforce have realized their need for skills renovation in order to provide excellent care for patients and stay competitive in their working area. The state can help nurses achieve the required level of medical competency by integrating these recommendations into action. For this reason, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) convened special collaborations on the basis of the state of Arizona. They are called Action Coalitions. Their main task, which is literally the rationale for their existence, is the implementation of the guidelines identified in the IOM “Future of Nursing” report.

Among these Action Coalitions, the driving force of Future of Nursing Campaign is the Arizona Action Coalition (AZAC). The description of AZAC in its website says:

“The goal of the AZAC is to effect long-term sustainable change in moving the IOM recommendations into action. Comprised of diverse groups of stakeholders from a variety of sectors, the mission of the AZAC is to develop an issue strategy plan that will be the basis for the coalition implementation efforts. We will strive to capture best practices, determine research needs, track lessons learned and identify replicable models.”

The two initiatives the Arizona Action Coalition is currently working on are the RWJF Future of Nursing™ Campaign for Action and collaboration through American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Foundation. Following is the discussion of both initiatives.

The Future of Nursing Campaign for Action is the initiative through which the RWJF tracks the compliance with suggestions specified in the report of the AZAC. The areas of suggestions vary from nurse training to workforce policy. Moreover, this initiative gathers statistical data related to the nursing workforce and nursing as medicine area such as graphs, tables, figures and charts, conducts researches, compiles reports, and papers.

The AARP Foundation is the charity organization engaged in helping the low-income elderly. Their primary role is providing social security to the specified population group. Among the types of protection they provide are consumer, employment, long-term care, and critical health protection. The AARP is linked to the Arizona Action Coalition in a vital way: AARP is providing funds for a nursing workforce and their education capacity. One of the reasons why the country experiences a shortage in nursing workforce is that prospective students who apply for nursing baccalaureate or doctorate at university do not possess enough capacity to enter a program. In such a way, collaboration with AARP Foundation is an extremely important initiative for AZAC.

To summarize everything that was discussed, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1) The Future of Nursing Campaign for Action report is important because it sets forth an action plan with recommendations as to what should be done to improve the health care system;

2) These suggestions imply that nurses get better education and training in order to become more functional in their workplace;

3) The progress of the report recommendations’ integration is tracked by a special group of people called Arizona Action Coalition (AZAC);

4) Apart from the Future of Nursing Campaign for Action, AZAC is involved in another initiative that is collaboration with AARP that provide funds for the nursing workforce.