Reflection & Dialogue: Care of Older Adults (Headlines from the Nln‪)‬

The National League for Nursing's mission is to advance excellence in nursing education to build a strong and diverse nursing workforce. It is essential to that mission that we lead in setting standards for teaching students how to manage the complexity of care for multi-ethnic older adults. The focus must be on health promotion in a wide variety of environments, such as independent living, rehabilitation and home settings, and acute care facilities. Since new graduates of nursing programs must be competent in caring for older adults across multiple health settings (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2008), it is crucial that nursing students understand how coordinating care during significant life transitions for older adults is fundamental to ensuring culturally competent, individualized, holistic care for older adults and their caregivers. Yet this focus may not be sufficiently emphasized in today's nursing curricula. During the past 20 years, the integration and strengthening of learning experiences about nursing care for older adults has been advocated by national funders. For example, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the Teaching Nursing Home Project (1982-1987) to improve the quality of nursing home care and the clinical education of nurses by linking nursing schools with nursing homes. And the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded the Community College Nursing Home Partnership grant (1986-1993) to enhance gerontological nursing education in two-year associate degree programs.