Government funding aims to increase nurse numbers

New Mexico, Arizona, Florida and Indiana recently passed legislation to enable nursing schools to educate more students. In 2021, nursing schools turned away 92,000 qualified applicants due to a lack of faculty, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. AONL member Joy Upshaw, BSN, RN, CNO at Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, noted that while the state funding will help ensure hospitals have “a steady stream of educated and trained nurses,” she would like to see the funding to continue longer than the three years dictated in the law. (Medscape article, 1/19/23)