Registration Now Open for the 2024 Nephrology Nursing Summit!

Nephrology Nursing Shortage and Solutions Invitational Summit

In March 2003, ANNA convened an invitational summit to bring members of the renal community together to discuss issues concerning the shortage of nurses in dialysis and to create a detailed national plan to address the recruitment of nurses into nephrology and the retention of experienced nephrology nurses. Summit attendees included representatives from major providers of dialysis services, nephrology-related professional organizations, and government agencies. The content of the Summit presentations and the group work accomplished at the Summit was published in the August 2003 issue of theNephrology Nursing Journal and is available here for download:

Task Forces

As a result of the Summit, several task forces were created to address both short- and-long term solutions to opportunities identified by Summit participants to recruit and retain qualified registered nurses in nephrology. The task forces were also designed to bring together Summit participants and other experts and interested stakeholders to implement the Summit work group outcomes, priorities, and actions plans. Each task force was co-chaired by an ANNA representative and another Summit representative and was also assigned an ANNA Board member as an advisor.

Educational Task Force

The Educational Task Force was co-chaired by Charlotte Thomas Hawkins, PhD, RN, CNN, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University College of Nursing and Mignon Early, BSN, RN, Senior Vice President, Operations, National Nephrology Associates. The task force has worked diligently to create strategies for nephrology providers to use to link with schools of nursing and nursing students. The results of their work were published in the November-December 2005 issue of the Nephrology Nursing Journal. These results and additional resources created by the task force (such as externship application and reference forms) are available for download below.