PRESENTED BY: Jeanette Klemczak

May 15, 2002

• The Association thanks the members of the House Committee for their leadership on this important initiative to address Michigan's nursing workforce needs.

• Nursing scholarships will be a part of assuring that Michigan citizens have adequate high quality nursing care services now and into the future.

• We urge the addition of public health nursing as a category for "eligible employment" in meeting the scholarship service requirement. Michigan's local health departments are desperately in need of qualified educated public health nurses.
  

  In this time of high concern about bio-defense in our state, public health nurses are in the first line of this defense. They are the "canaries in the coal mine" in our communities. They are dispersed in neighborhoods, schools, work places and are often the first to see patterns of illness and disease, which may be early warnings of bio-terror events. Michigan is in the top ten states at risk for attack. It is critically important to assure the supply of public health nurses in our communities.

  Page 2 line 11 to read: "or state or local public health department".

• We also ask that you consider reducing the years of service required in conjunction with the scholarship award. The federal nursing scholarships generally require two years of service in total. Date from nursing education programs indicate that more than 95% of nurses remain and practice in Michigan after completing their nursing education. Taxpayers already receive a substantial return on their investment in nursing education.
  
  
• We also urge continued work in collaborating to develop programs and resources to address the other areas essential for a comprehensive approach to address the nursing workforce on a continuous basis (thereby, preventing these crises). These needs include support for increasing the number of nursing educators who are aging more rapidly than the rest of the nurse population, exploring alternative models of delivering nursing care.

• Finally, we urge rapid action on the establishment of the Center for Nursing. One of the major functions of this Center will be the continuous collection and analysis of data about the demographics and the numbers of the nursing workforce. This is the needed effort to monitor and assure the right number of nurses to serve the needs of our citizens.

Thank you.