Transforming Nursing: An Institute of Medicine Report In 2008, the Institute of Medicine in coordination with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) formed a partnership to examine the future of the nursing profession and its place in an ever evolving health care system. The resulting report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, was completed in 2010 at about the same time as the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The architects of this study recognized that the nursing profession makes up a substantial proportion of all health care providers and consequently, nurses will have a significant impact on the successful delivery of "safe, high-quality, and effective health care service" (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2010, xi). Accordingly, the primary focus advanced by the committee included transforming nursing education, nurse practice, and leadership within the nursing profession (IOM, 2010). The committee, being cognizant of the challenges facing the health care community, identified a highly educated and well trained nursing corps as being the foundation behind a trustworthy and dependable health care system. Nursing education and training must therefore play an integral part in developing highly skilled and effective providers of excellent nursing care. With this requirement in consideration, four out of the eight final recommendations allude to education and training, including a goal to "implement nurse residency programs," an objective to "increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degrees to 80 percent by 2020," the goal to "double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020," and the intent to "ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning" (IOM, 2010, pp. 9-15).
The preparation of current and future nurses extends from entry level
