An Update on the 5-Year Progress of the IOM Future of Nursing Report: A Conversation with Key Players

The focus of this interdisciplinary dialogue is to update participants on the assessment by the special committee of the National Academy of Medicine charged with reporting on the changes in the field of nursing and peripheral areas over the last 5 years since Future of Nursing Report. This presentation and panel discussion will address the progress on the implementation of the recommendations for nursing and health care systems.

About the Moderator

Diana J. Mason, RN, PhD, FAAN is the Rudin Professor of Nursing and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Health, Media, and Policy (CHMP) at Hunter College; and Professor, City University of New York (CUNY). She is the immediate past President of the American Academy of Nursing and served as Strategic Adviser for the Campaign for Action, an initiative to implement the recommendations from the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report, to which she contributed. Dr. Mason served as Co-President of the Hermann Biggs Society, a health policy salon in New York City, from 2012-2015.

Dr. Mason is also a journalist who has produced and moderated a weekly New York City radio program on health and health policy for 30 years. Since its inception, she has served on the National Advisory Committee for Kaiser Health News.  She served as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Nursing for over a decade. Her leadership in transforming the journal resulted in numerous awards for editorial excellence, her editorials, and dissemination, culminating in the journal being selected by the Specialized Libraries Association as one of the One Hundred Most Influential Journals of the Century in Biology and Medicine—the only nursing journal to be selected for this distinction. She is the author of over 200 publications and blogs for the Center for Health, Media and Policy and for the JAMA News Forum.

She is the lead co-editor of the award-winning book, Policy and Politics in Nursing and Health Care, and of The Nursing Profession: Development, Challenges, and Opportunities, part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Book Series. Dr. Mason has received numerous awards for her writing and dissemination of health-related information.

Dr. Mason is the Principal Investigator for a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore how nurses address building a culture of health in their innovative models of care; the study is a collaboration between the American Academy of Nursing and the RAND Corporation.

She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Long Island University and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from West Virginia University; fellowship in the New York Academy of Medicine; the Lillian Wald Service Award from the American Public Health Association; the Rose and George Doval Award for Excellence in Nursing Education from New York University; and the Pioneering Spirit Award from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.

About the Panelists

George E. Thibault, MD is the President, Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation and Federman Professor, Emeritus Harvard Medical School (HMS). George E. Thibault, MD became the seventh president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation in January 2008.  Immediately prior to that, he served as Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Partners Healthcare System in Boston and Director of the Academy at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He was the first Daniel D. Federman Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at HMS and is now the Federman Professor, Emeritus.

Dr. Thibault previously served as Chief Medical Officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as Chief of Medicine at the Harvard affiliated Brockton/West Roxbury VA Hospital. He was Associate Chief of Medicine and Director of the Internal Medical Residency Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). At the MGH he also served as Director of the Medical ICU and the Founding Director of the Medical Practice Evaluation Unit.

For nearly four decades at HMS, Dr. Thibault played leadership roles in many aspects of undergraduate and graduate medical education. He played a central role in the New Pathway Curriculum reform and was a leader in the new Integrated Curriculum reform at HMS. He was the Founding Director of the Academy at HMS, which was created to recognize outstanding teachers and to promote innovations in medical education. Throughout his career he has been recognized for his roles in teaching and mentoring medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty. In addition to his teaching, his research has focused on the evaluation of practices and outcomes of medical intensive care and variations in the use of cardiac technologies.

Dr. Thibault is Chairman of the Board of the MGH Institute of Health Professions, Chairman of the Board of the New York Academy of Medicine, and he serves on the Boards of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Institute on Medicine as a Profession. He serves on the President’s White House Fellows Commission and for twelve years he chaired the Special Medical Advisory Group for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. He is past President of the Harvard Medical Alumni Association and Past Chair of Alumni Relations at HMS. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Thibault graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University in 1965 and magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1969.  He completed his internship and residency in Medicine and fellowship in Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).  He also trained in Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute in Bethesda and at Guys Hospital in London, and served as Chief Resident in Medicine at MGH.

Jack Needleman, PhD, FAAN, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His research on hospital nurse staffing and quality has been widely cited and won the first AcademyHealth Health Services Research Impact Award.  He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) and an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. He teaches courses in health policy analysis and American political institutions and health policy in the master’s programs and research design and research methods to doctoral and MS students.

Dr. Needleman’s research focuses on the impact of changing markets and public policy on quality and access to care, and health care provider and insurer responses to market and regulatory incentives. For the past decade, Dr. Needleman’s research has focused on studies of quality and staffing in hospitals and on the evaluation and design of performance improvement activities.  Three of Dr. Needleman’s first authored publications on quality of care and nurse staffing are designated patient safety classics by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Quality measures he developed have been adopted by AHRQ, Medicare, Joint Commission, and National Quality Forum and his expertise developing, testing and refining quality measures has been tapped by these and other organizations. He was lead evaluator for the Robert Wood Johnson initiative Transforming Care at the Bedside and serves on the Steering Council for the NIH-funded Improvement Science Research Network.

Dr. Needleman’s research extends beyond nursing. He has directed projects on a wide range of topics, including studies of for-profit and nonprofit hospitals, the impact of community health centers on hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions, and changes in access to inpatient care for psychiatric conditions and substance abuse. He has had a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award to study the future of public hospitals. He studied Canadian provisional systems for paying and regulating hospitals, physicians and supplemental health insurers, and regulating new technology. Prior to coming to UCLA in 2003, Dr. Needleman was on the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health and before that was Vice President and Co-Director of the Public Policy Practice at Lewin/ICF, a Washington health policy research and consulting firm. While at Lewin/ICF, he conducted studies and served as a consultant to numerous state and federal task forces examining health care costs and access to care, and evaluated or helped design payment systems for hospitals, physicians and nursing homes.

Susan Apold, PhD, ANP-BC, FAAN, FAANP is a Clinical Professor of Nursing at the Rory Meyers School of Nursing at New York University College of Nursing where she teaches Masters and Doctoral students health policy and policy engagement.  She has served as Professor and founding Dean of Nursing and Health Studies at Concordia College-NewYork where she established three Baccalaureate Nursing programs (Accelerated, traditional Undergraduate and RN completion) and programs in Health Studies.   Prior to her appointment to Concordia, Dr. Apold served at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, New York, where she held a number of positions from faculty to Professor and Dean of the Department of Nursing and finally as the Vice-President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty.  At the College of Mount Saint Vincent, Dr. Apold developed and implemented both an Adult and Family Nurse Practitioner programs, developed a College wide Honors Program and oversaw all academic programs in the College.  She is the author of a variety of publications, has presented at a number of national conferences and has been awarded over 3 million dollars in HRSA program grants which funded Workforce Diversity and Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students.

In addition to her work in nursing education, Dr. Apold has served two terms as President of the American College of Nurse Practitioners (ACNP) and The Nurse Practitioner Association New York State (The NPA, NY).  Dr. Apold served as a member of the inaugural Board of Directors at the AANP.  Currently, Dr. Apold is the founding Chair of the AANP Nurse Practitioner Leadership program, an executive training program of the AANP.  Dr. Apold is a member of the editorial board of The Journal for Nurse Practitioners and Nursing Outlook.   

Dr. Apold is a Fellow of the both American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.  She is an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows program.

Lisa Sundean is the Statewide Director of the Connecticut Nursing Collaborative-Action Coalition and the Project Director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation SIP3 Grant.

Lisa holds bachelors and masters degrees in Nursing and a masters degree in Healthcare Administration. She is currently a PhD candidate and Jonas Leadership Scholar at The University of Connecticut School of Nursing. Her program of research focuses on nurses on governing boards. She serves on a work group of the Nurses on Boards Coalition which serves to monitor and promote nurses for governance leadership roles. Lisa has held hospital and other nonprofit board positions including YWCA Hartford Region. She is currently a board member of the Connecticut League for Nursing and a former board member and current external member of the board quality improvement committee for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center where she recently led a task force to develop a quality and safety module for new board member orientation.  

Lisa’s clinical background is in neonatal intensive care. Lisa recently received the Collaborative Spirit Award from the Northern Connecticut Black Nurses Association for her support of quality healthcare education in the community. Lisa is a member of several national, regional and state nursing organizations and is a dual member of Sigma Theta Tau International, Kappa Alpha and Mu Chapters.