Though a handful of state legislatures are considering mandating nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, government mandates are not the answer to nurse staffing, the American Organization of Nursing Leadership (AONL) has declared.

One of the most common practices among nurse leaders to improve retention is employee rounding—so much so that the time-consuming practice has been “hard-wired” into leadership routines. Problem is, rounding as most nurse leaders conduct it, is generally useless, according to research by, in part, the American Organization of Nursing Leadership.

Healthcare educators are taking decisive steps in growing and strengthening the U.S. nursing workforce, with efforts ranging from simplifying the transfer of credits between higher education institutions to creating alliances with hospitals or health systems to building more nursing schools.

The collaboration creates a pathway for students admitted to the U of M School of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program to complete about 1,000 hours of required clinical training at Mayo Clinic hospitals in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The program begins in fall 2024.

The NLC has been operational for more than 20 years, though a new and modernized version of the language was drafted and approved by boards of nursing in 2015. Since then, 38 states and two territories—Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands—have enacted the NLC legislation.