Testimony for Congress: Understanding the issues

Another of my projects this month is helping to develop testimony for Congress about Title VII and Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act.

Early in January 2008 we learned that the Health, Education, and Labor Committee chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy would be conducting Congressional Hearings for the Reauthorization of Title VII and VIII of the Public Health Service Act. 

Title VII provides funding for all of the Health Professions; Title VIII provides funding for the nursing workforce. 

I am working on testimony to be given by Dr. Susan Reinhard, Director of Public Policy Institute of AARP. 

Testimony will focus on the nursing shortage overall and the need to solve the problem of the faculty shortage before the overall nursing shortage can be solved. The current faculty shortage is projected to intensify as retirements increase in the next 10 years. Thus, we argue, federal policy efforts must be redirected to increase support for nursing faculty development, including specific efforts to enhance nursing schools’ overall capacity to produce greater numbers of professional nurses. 

Priority must be given to deal with the Nurse Faculty shortage because a faculty shortage is the kink in the pipeline of why we can’t solve the overall nursing shortage. 

This testimony will be given from a consumer point of view, illustrating how consumers are affected by the nursing shortage.

It's a very interesting process and I hope to be able to let you know how it turns out!