Addressing the Texas Nursing Shortage: A Legislative Approach to Bolstering the Nursing Education Pipeline

Abstract

This article describes a successful collaborative endeavor by organizations within Texas to address the nursing shortage. As one of the first states to address the nursing shortage from a legislative perspective, passage of the Nursing Shortage Reduction Act of 2001 focused on bolstering the nursing education pipeline. Specifically addressed are the strategic planning process for development and passage of this important legislation, the content of the legislation, and a 2-year summary of the impact of the legislation on the Texas nursing educational infrastructure.

Priority setting and policy advocacy by nursing associations: A scoping review and implications using a socio-ecological whole systems lens

“…Members were also viewed as critical to the work accomplished by organizations, as they served as champions for their organizations' cause(s) [48,82,94]. Low levels of member participation partly explained limited involvement of organizations in policy issues [26,50,51,84,95].…”

“…Collaborations provided access to policies outside organizations' jurisdiction authority and enhanced advocacy capacity [26,48,56,59,62]. However, the nursing literature particularly described how organizations with different mandates, purposes, histories, organizational structures, cultures, and membership responsibilities experienced competition, conflict, diminished ability to speak as a collective voice, and policy inertia [37,39,47,81,84,86,88,89,94,98,99]. Challenges to collaborations were partly attributed to a rise in specialty nursing organizations that ignored issues outside their specialties.…”

“…Confidence in organizations' competence, expected performance, or anticipated contributions to solve a problem facilitated organizations' participation in policy initiatives and increased their political power [30,42,64,66,81,94]. The non-nursing literature suggested that organizations perceived to be credible by external parties were more likely to use direct advocacy tactics (e.g., direct negotiation), while indirect advocacy tactics (e.g., influence public opinion) were used when organizations had been ineffective in getting a response from government or were excluded from decision tables [71].…”

“…Working with others served to protect organizations or offset opposition when in conflict with advocacy targets (e.g., government or industry) [56,69,71]; enhanced access to resources and diversified political actions [26,40,44,46,52,56,62,63,79,81,94,104]; created common and meaningful positions or frames [26,32,73,78]; and increased visibility, credibility, trust, and political clout [23,62,69,71,102]. Those in health did not always have the necessary mandate or supports required to influence change outside the health sector [73].…”

A Correlational Study of a Reading Comprehension Program and Attrition Rates of ESL Nursing Students in Texas

“…In 2001, the Texas legislature passed the Nursing Shortage Reduction Act (Green et al, 2004). This act was intended to address the nursing shortage in two ways, nursing education and the nursing workforce environment.…”