Johnson & Johnson Promoting Nurse Recruitment
Johnson & Johnson launched a $20 million national advertising and promotional campaign to attract more people to nursing in hospitals and extended care facilities. The initiative included recruitment brochures, posters and videos for 20,000 high schools, 1,500 nursing schools, and nursing organizations; scholarship funds for students and nursing faculty; a multi-city scholarship fund-raising campaign with hospitals, nursing organizations and hospital associations; a website (http://www.discovernursing.com  ) about the benefits of nursing careers featuring searchable links to hundreds of nursing scholarships and more than 1,000 accredited nursing programs; and a national advertising campaign to celebrate nurses and their contributions.
Future plans include addressing ways to retain nurses in hospitals. Pamela Thompson, executive director of AHA's American Organization of Nurse Executives, is an advisor to the campaign, which was developed with national nursing organizations. Gary Mecklenburg, chairman of AHA's Workforce Commission and AHA's immediate past chairman, also contributed to the effort.
Americans are acutely aware of the national nursing shortage and believe it's a serious problem, according to a national poll released by Vanderbilt University Medical Center's School of Nursing and Center for Health Services Research. The poll found more than eight in 10 Americans are aware of the nursing shortage, nearly two-thirds recognize it as a major problem or crisis, and 93% believe it jeopardizes quality of care. The poll also found 97% of Americans view nurses and the nursing profession favorably and 83% would encourage a loved one to take up a career in nursing. However, the study found a general lack of knowledge of the nursing profession and the opportunities it presents. The telephone poll of 1,005 American adults was commissioned by Johnson & Johnson, which launched a national advertising and recruitment campaign aimed at attracting more people into nursing.
|