This past May (May 3, 2008 - May 8, 2008), Cross Country Staffing joined the more than 500 exhibitors and thousands of nurses in attendance at the National Teaching Institute (NTI) & Critical Care Exposition held in Chicago, IL. As the world's largest educational conference and exposition for acute and critical care nurses, the focus and theme of this year's NTI couldn't have been more apt - "Reclaiming our Priorities." During a time when the entire healthcare community is faced with the tough task of ensuring sufficient workforce numbers while maintaining quality care, this year's NTI reminds us all that the time for action is now, and that the future of critical care nursing depends on our ability to not only reclaim, but revitalize, our priorities.

Leading the charge is the world's largest specialty nursing organization, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN). While representing more than 500,000 critical care nurses across the country, including cardiac, pediatric, neonatal, progressive care, emergency and trauma, advanced practice, and beside nurses, as well as nurse managers, directors, and clinical nurse specialists, you begin to get a sense of the huge scope that critical care nursing encompasses. Likewise, it helps define just why the AACN has long been held as an instrumental asset to all critical care RNs when it comes to promoting legislation that focuses the national spotlight on important issues.

And just what are these issues? To start with, the supply and demand of actual critical care nurses in the field ranks high on the list. Due to recent declines in enrollment at nursing schools, which leads to hospitals and healthcare facilities being forced to educate their own, the amount of new critical care RNs has suffered. And when you consider that the current nursing workforce continues to age and approach retirement, the demand for new nurses will continue to increase while the ability to supply them continues to decrease. With many of today's nurses set to retire as early as 2010, the need for the healthcare community to reclaim sufficient practices of educating and training new nurses is here.

In direct relation to the supply and demand of critical care nurses today, we must also take a long, hard look at how we retain the workforce we wish to replenish. Important workplace issues, such as dealing with the physical and emotional demands that all critical care specialties require, is imperative to maintaining a happy and healthy workforce. The reality of the situation has required nurses to work longer hours, mandatory overtime, and face decreased staffing ratios and thereby resulting in increased turnover and more nurses leaving their jobs at a time when the exact opposite needs to occur. Simply put, the fact that nurses report feeling undervalued, overworked and underpaid should be the wake-up call that we need to act fast.

Cross Country Staffing (CCS), since its inception, has been providing high quality, experienced Registered Nurses to the nation's hospitals. In 2007, CCS had an average of 973 travelers working 4,020 assignments (1 assignment = 13 weeks) and the majority of these assignments were spent providing care in ICU, PICU and Critical Care areas. A profile of these nurses consists of 60% with a baccalaureate degree, 39% certified in their specialty and an average of 8 years experience and 2.5 years experience as a traveler.

Cross Country Staffing has collaborated and created innovative ways with some of the nation's leading medical centers to address the ever growing nursing shortage. In 2007, Cross Country University (CCU), the corporate university of Cross Country Staffing, created the Collaborative Learning and Career Enrichment (CLCE) program with the intent to recruit, train and retain our nursing talent.

This program provides experienced RNs the opportunity to become multi-specialty practitioners in high demand and short supply areas. An example would be the experienced Telemetry nurse who would like to expand their skills to become a Critical Care nurse, or the experienced PICU nurse who would like to gain PICU-OH experience. In this progressive competency based program, all stakeholders are winners. The nurse becomes multi-skilled and the hospital benefits by the nurse extending their assignment, while Cross Country benefits by expanding its supply of high-demand/short-supply nurses. The program is directed by a Masters prepared nurse with extensive Critical Care and educational background, and is supported through the Learning Management System under the leadership of the Director for Learning. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate in unique and creative ways with medical centers across the U.S.

So what are the strategies to increasing the supply of critical care nurses? It starts with placing restrictions on the mandatory overtime that so severely depletes the work ethic of today's nurses. By reducing the stress and strain on the current workforce, we can look forward to more positive word-of-mouth among current nurses to prospects looking to join the profession. Furthermore, we need to begin requiring hospitals and healthcare facilities to establish patient insight systems, where work environments foster a positive collaborative care relationship among caregiver and patient.

The AACN also believes that another major step towards "reclaiming our priorities" lies in the allocation of resources and public funding on the national and local levels for more access to student loans and financial perks to those who teach nursing skills. By strengthening the education process itself, through grants, scholarships and training programs in all specialty areas of critical care, we can ensure a more educated and well-prepared workforce ready to enter the profession. CCU offers continuing education as well as other learning and career enrichment opportunities for our hcp's.

Perhaps the biggest step forward in this ongoing undertaking to ensure the future of critical care nursing is the legislative agenda adopted by the AACN, and passed by the Senate and signed into law in 2002, the Nurse Reinvestment Act. This comprehensive legislation tackles nearly all the areas we've covered here, including funding for nursing education and loan forgiveness programs, and continues to be a point of reference for how we should be tackling today's current issues. Six years on and still there is much work to be done. Cross Country Staffing is committed to standing side-by-side with the AACN to see that the future of critical care nursing is ensured for years to come.