The nurse leaders at AONL 2025 are looking to revolutionize nursing education and promote nursing advocacy.
The 2025 AONL Conference wrapped up on Wednesday this week in Boston after four days of learning, idea sharing, high wind chill, and clam chowder.
This year, technology was the main superstar as leaders brainstormed the pros and cons of AI and the best use cases for virtual nursing. However, there was an undercurrent of tension and worry regarding the future of healthcare policy, the ethics surrounding AI, and other new nursing practices.
Despite these concerns, the nurse leaders in attendance are looking to push past boundaries and step into the future with highly effective strategies to keep nursing sustainable. Here are two of those innovative ideas.
Revolutionizing nursing education
With the nursing shortage in full swing, it's been difficult for nurse leaders everywhere to find new nurses and create pipelines into the industry. To help bring more nurses into the profession, the nursing leadership at WVU Medicine and Beebe Healthcare created hospital-based RN diploma programs.
According to Tanya Rogers, AVP of nursing education at WVU Medicine, and Karen Pickard, director of the Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing and Clinical Professional Development at Beebe Healthcare, the goal of those diploma programs is to address staffing issues while having a program that can scale and change with the workforce.
According to Rogers and Pickard, this program is scalable for other health systems, and if CNOs want to try this program at their own health systems, they should customize it to fit their organizations.
At WVU, the students receive one credit for every five clinical hours, and their NCLEX pass rates are comparable to more traditional degree programs. They also receive free tuition as long as they commit to working in the health system for three years following the completion of the program. WVU partnered with Beebe to focus on outcomes, and there are four ROI metrics that the program focuses on: GME reimbursement, traveler savings, bed closure mitigation, and student tuition assistance.
Promoting nursing advocacy
Despite the wave of anti-DEI executive orders from the Trump administration, the nurse leaders at AONL came to discuss policy and how to get involved in the decision-making process at the local, state, and federal level.
Torrey Trzcienski, Jennifer Boutelle, and Kelly Haeckel from Middlesex Health created a policy advocacy coalition called the Healthcare Policy Awareness and Advocacy Coalition (HPAAC) to help get nurses more involved in policy. They collected data through a cross-sectional research study to see how knowledgeable and involved the nurses and nurse leaders are in political spheres.
For CNOs who want to attempt a program like this, Trzcienski, Boutelle, and Haeckel recommend starting locally to effect change that one can see in their community. Nurses can advocate in one of four different areas:
- Public health
- Patient care
- Nursing practice
- Fiscal sustainability
They also recommended gathering data to know where nurses are now, and then trying to prioritize policy and participating in the legislative process through voting and/or public comment. They also recommended inviting legislators to come into a health system to get a sense of what the industry is really like. That way, the nurse or nurse leader can build relationships with those legislators, and give them a person to call when they have questions about nursing.
G Hatfield is the CNO editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
There was an undercurrent of tension and worry at AONL regarding the future of healthcare policy, the ethics surrounding AI, and other new nursing practices.
To help bring more nurses into the profession, the nursing leadership at WVU Medicine and Beebe Healthcare created hospital-based RN diploma programs.
Leadership at Middlesex Health created a policy advocacy coalition called the Healthcare Policy Awareness and Advocacy Coalition (HPAAC) to help get nurses more involved in policy.