- Email: [email protected]
Helping Regulators Shape Their Future
Editorial
Helping Regulators Shape Their Future
H
appy 2017! At one time or another, we have probably all wished we had a crystal ball. Imagine if you did. The knowledge would enrich your strategic planning, assist you in avoiding adverse events, and allow you to be the center of attention at every party as your colleagues and friends sought you for wisdom and advice. Unfortunately, the technology for the crystal ball has not yet been developed; however, we at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) are empowering you with resources that will facilitate your own predictions and planning with high-level accuracy. The first is NCSBN’s Annual Environmental Scan, which accompanies this issue of the Journal of Nursing Regulation. Each year, our staff examine a variety of news, academic, political, and cultural sources for data and information that are shaping the field of nursing and regulation. This is the only resource of its kind meant for regulators and other nursing leaders. Its goal is to bring you up to date on the current status of the nursing workforce and education, quality of care, government, regulation, and other issues, so that you can prepare and plan for the next few years. The 2017 scan places special emphasis on the future and not only provides a look at what is currently happening in technology but also provides insight into what is to come. We hope that this resource will help boards of nursing and other nursing leaders make their own strategic new year predictions. Whereas the 2017 Environmental Scan will help you through the next few years, another resource emerging later this year from NCSBN will lead you further into the future. Regulation 2030 will be released in April 2017 and will address 25 emerging trends and how we can embrace them or avoid them by the year 2030. The data are based on the outcomes of a meeting held in October 2016 that brought regulators and nurse leaders from across the United States and around the world to Chicago to envision the future of regulation. Participants were placed into groups of eight, assigned an emerging trend, and asked to develop concept maps by writing down words and phrases that described what would bring the emerging trend to fruition, including the requirements and deliverables. These maps are now in the process of being analyzed and may play pivotal roles in preparing regulators for the future. The analysis may identify outcomes we want to accelerate and some we may want to deter. Three papers describing the trends, methodology, and outcomes will be published in a supplement to the Journal of Nursing Regulation. Volume 7/Issue 4 January 2017
As many a soothsayer would say, the information you are given is only as good as what you do with it. And as such stories usually go, those who are granted such glimpses of the future have a choice: accept the fate that is laid out for them or work to change what lies ahead into the future they hope to see. Hopefully, nurse regulators everywhere will use this knowledge to begin laying out the groundwork for solid policy, stronger education, and safer practice for this and future generations of nurses, so that they are ready, in turn, for whatever the crystal ball shows them. Of course, this will only happen if you take action. As we give you the necessary tools throughout 2017, our hope is that you use them to shape your own future. Maryann Alexander, PhD, RN, FAAN Editor-in-Chief
www.journalofnursingregulation.com
3
Helping Regulators Shape Their Future
H
appy 2017! At one time or another, we have probably all wished we had a crystal ball. Imagine if you did. The knowledge would enrich your strategic planning, assist you in avoiding adverse events, and allow you to be the center of attention at every party as your colleagues and friends sought you for wisdom and advice. Unfortunately, the technology for the crystal ball has not yet been developed; however, we at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) are empowering you with resources that will facilitate your own predictions and planning with high-level accuracy. The first is NCSBN’s Annual Environmental Scan, which accompanies this issue of the Journal of Nursing Regulation. Each year, our staff examine a variety of news, academic, political, and cultural sources for data and information that are shaping the field of nursing and regulation. This is the only resource of its kind meant for regulators and other nursing leaders. Its goal is to bring you up to date on the current status of the nursing workforce and education, quality of care, government, regulation, and other issues, so that you can prepare and plan for the next few years. The 2017 scan places special emphasis on the future and not only provides a look at what is currently happening in technology but also provides insight into what is to come. We hope that this resource will help boards of nursing and other nursing leaders make their own strategic new year predictions. Whereas the 2017 Environmental Scan will help you through the next few years, another resource emerging later this year from NCSBN will lead you further into the future. Regulation 2030 will be released in April 2017 and will address 25 emerging trends and how we can embrace them or avoid them by the year 2030. The data are based on the outcomes of a meeting held in October 2016 that brought regulators and nurse leaders from across the United States and around the world to Chicago to envision the future of regulation. Participants were placed into groups of eight, assigned an emerging trend, and asked to develop concept maps by writing down words and phrases that described what would bring the emerging trend to fruition, including the requirements and deliverables. These maps are now in the process of being analyzed and may play pivotal roles in preparing regulators for the future. The analysis may identify outcomes we want to accelerate and some we may want to deter. Three papers describing the trends, methodology, and outcomes will be published in a supplement to the Journal of Nursing Regulation. Volume 7/Issue 4 January 2017
As many a soothsayer would say, the information you are given is only as good as what you do with it. And as such stories usually go, those who are granted such glimpses of the future have a choice: accept the fate that is laid out for them or work to change what lies ahead into the future they hope to see. Hopefully, nurse regulators everywhere will use this knowledge to begin laying out the groundwork for solid policy, stronger education, and safer practice for this and future generations of nurses, so that they are ready, in turn, for whatever the crystal ball shows them. Of course, this will only happen if you take action. As we give you the necessary tools throughout 2017, our hope is that you use them to shape your own future. Maryann Alexander, PhD, RN, FAAN Editor-in-Chief
www.journalofnursingregulation.com
3