Contact: Gretchen Wright and Johanna Diaz – (202) 371-1999; George Koodray – (609) 989-7888 x157
$22 Million Initiative to Launch at State Senate Hearing Thursday;
Focus on Nurse Faculty Shortage, Averting Health Care Crisis in State
New Jersey does not have enough faculty to educate the nurses the state will need to provide quality health care for its residents in coming years. How is this likely to affect patient care, as the state’s population ages? What does it mean for the business community? What steps will improve the situation and ensure there are enough well-prepared nurses to care for New Jersey residents?
Those questions will be explored at a legislative hearing on nursing issues sponsored by the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. During the session, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation will announce an unprecedented $22 million initiative aimed at ensuring that New Jersey will have an adequate nursing workforce to meet its future health care needs. The legislative hearing will take place:
10 a.m., Thursday, May 28
New Jersey State House Annex
First Floor, Committee Room 4
125 West State Street
Trenton, New Jersey
The hearing will focus on the New Jersey nursing workforce and the steps that can ensure that the state has enough nurses to avert a health care crisis in coming years. Speakers will include:
- Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
- Susan Bakewell-Sachs, PhD, RN, PNP-BC, Program Director of the New Jersey Nursing Initiative and Dean of the School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science at The College of New Jersey.
- Joan Verplanck, president of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.
- Jeffrey Scheininger, president of Flexline/US Brass & Copper Corp.
- David Anthony Forrester, Ph.D., R.N., ANEF, Professor, UMDNJ School of Nursing.
- Maria Torchia LoGrippo, RN, MSN, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Jersey Nursing Scholar.
- Fred West, Ocean Township resident who will discuss the role nurses played in a family member’s battle against liver cancer.
The witnesses will be introduced by Mary Ann Christopher, R.N., M.S.N., F.A.A.N, President, Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey, who chairs the new initiative’s National Advisory Committee. She will provide additional information to the Committee.
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