North Dakota Action Coalition:

Developing Innovative Approaches to Increasing Nursing Leadership

The North Dakota Action Coalition (NDAC) is a grass-roots, volunteer group of over 40 nursing leaders and stakeholders across North Dakota with an interest in implementing recommendations from the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing report. The NDAC is co-lead by the North Dakota Center for Nursing and the University of Mary Harold Schafer Emerging Leaders Academy. The NDAC is currently seeking match funding for a statewide nursing leadership program. The program is designed to implement two key recommendations from the Institute of Medicine 2010 Future of Nursing Report:

Recommendation 2: Expand opportunities for nurses to lead and diffuse collaborative improvement efforts.

Recommendation 7: Prepare and enable nurses to lead change to advance health.

The NDAC has developed three goals for the next two years.

Goal 1: Develop an advisory council to represent diverse, interdisciplinary interest in nursing leadership development and to develop a sustainability game plan.

Goal 2: Provide an ongoing opportunity for statewide leadership development through annual statewide nursing leadership summits held October 2014 and October 2015.

Goal 3: Develop innovative, targeted leadership development programming in four key topics: change/innovation, communication, health care systems and advocacy/health policy.

The NDAC recently applied for a two-year State Implementation Program Grant through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The NDAC was not chosen for funding.

  • The North Dakota Center for Nursing has provided $50,312 in match including project administration, communications/marketing, communications expenses, project space and revenue from leadership summits.
  • The University of Mary Harold Schaefer Emerging Leaders Academy has provided technical expertise and project administration in-kind support.
  • The requested funding of $99,202 from RWJF was for a project coordinator, travel to national conferences, meeting and summit expenses and program development consultant costs. The NDAC will need to find another source for this funding in order to fully implement our plans.