President's Point

NONPF Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 2, 2001

The NONPF Board of Directors engaged in "emergent strategic action" in April and has set the organization on a futuristic course. This type of planning is a move beyond outlining a future action plan that is only self-directed to assessing the broader environment and "connecting the dots."1  Through this evaluation, we identified the eight primary goals for the organization over the next three years as well as other significant issues to keep at the forefront of our radar screen. Connecting the dots - those just coming onto the horizon, those just dropping off, and all those in non-linear fashion in between - gave me a framework to make the point for this column.

The NONPF Board faced a daunting challenge of mapping out a three-year strategic planning in a single day in San Antonio before the conference. Yet, thanks to the advance work by the Board, we drafted a plan and are now in the midst of finalizing the first annual tactical plan. As reported in the last President's Point, we spent 3 months prior to the planning session identifying the dots of history, relevance, and impending change. We then connected two documents addressing current and futures issues to use in the planning session. In the day of intensive strategic planning, we addressed the eight most important moving and changing dots and decided whether to take the leadership, seek partnerships, avoid, or join the crowd with each. As a leadership team, the Board envisioned using all methods to advance NP education and health care.

The central and repeated theme was NONPF's advancement of leadership in assuring quality NP education. This foremost dot that fueled NONPF's creation - faculty's need for educational standards and guidelines - remains the strongest reason for being. Our past productivity has been remarkable, and the future plans are no less ambitious. Faculty practice, another dot, is taking on new importance to NP programs as preceptors become scarce. Also, the Board envisioned the potential to advance nursing science via academic nursing centers and other nurse managed centers - both to record the services provided and also to create national networks for nursing research. In another area, we recognized that meaningful diversity in NP education, NP practice, and NONPF membership and leadership would require different, more creative actions than before to achieve real change. We aspire to develop a culture of inclusiveness that will welcome NP faculty of diverse ethnicity, race, gender, backgrounds, and ways of thinking. While these various dots have remained on the screen for at least a decade, they are now more demanding of our attention.

A BIG dot is the realization that NP education is the major pipeline for nursing leaders, now that NP students comprise the majority of all graduate nursing students. It is logical to assume that NPs will increasingly assume leadership in nursing practice, education, research, and health care systems. A related set of dots became clearer and more pressing as we heard from the conference's plenary speakers: Ed O'Neil, Joan Shaver, and Len Nichols. These noted speakers independently espoused development of stronger NP leaders, incorporation of business, finance and management in all levels of nursing education, promotion of needed risk taking as individuals and organizations, and maintenance of public trust in the nurses as professionals. Bringing these dots together helped us to focus on our role in addressing the nursing shortage but also on what competencies need strengthening for this leadership role in demand.

We recognize a demand for NONPF products and services on a global basis. Yet, we see an emerging dot as our potential for global contributions broader than only sharing our products. With an egalitarian and mutually beneficial mission, the Board wants to strengthen global health care by strengthening NP education and NP leaders throughout the world - not just export what we do here to other countries. This will require creative partnering and collaboration.

Our plan will include other themes in the eight core goals, but there will also be a place for evolving dots. Two deserve special attention. First, reflecting the blending of NP and clinical nurse specialists (CNSs) roles and the raising of the bar for all advanced nurses, data from our joint curriculum survey document the emergence of new APN educational paradigms.. Encompassed in this topic is also the ongoing dialogue about nursing doctoral programs for the advancement of direct care skills. Secondly, as the NP and CNS roles look more similar, the Board wonders if we should invite those CNS educators to join NONPF. To address these dots in our plan, we decided to have 2 strategic initiatives which will undergo intensive Board study over the next year - 1) NONPF's role in shaping new educational paradigms and 2) the wisdom of opening NONPF to all APN educators but targeting CNS faculty.

We cannot lose sight of the other big changes in health care - genetics, technology to manage information and to deliver care via different modalities, and safety science, to name a few. The dots are on the NONPF screen, and they are connected in a coherent way through our strategic planning. With our traditional due diligence by the Board, leaders of our ad hoc groups, and our representatives to other organizations, we will keep NONPF in the vanguard to to assure quality NP education and an open pipeline for future nursing leaders.

Forgive me if I have overdone this analogy, but for strategic planning, the first thing to do is connect the dots of external forces with the internal ones and go from there. The outcome for NONPF was a strategic plan. You, as an individual faculty member, might plan a career or an NP program in the same manner.

Ever onward,

Lucy Marion, PhD, APRN, BC, FAAN

In a presentation to the RWJ Executive Nurse Fellows, Ed O'Neil of the UCSF Center for Health Professions described how to "connect the dots" to be strategic. The slides for Ed's presentation are available on the NONPF Web site, and I encourage the members to refer to this presentation for useful guidance on strategic planning (personally and professionally). Ed offered additional valuable information on leadership to faculty in his opening plenary session at the NONPF 27^th Annual Meeting. This presentation is also available on our Web site, as are the slide presentations by Drs. Joan Shaver and Len Nichols, the other plenary session presenters.