1. American Pacific Nursing Leaders Council Report to the Pacific Island Heath Officers Association Board of Directors Meeting August 31, 2016 Honolulu Hawaii
Kristine Qureshi, RN, PhD, FAAN
Professor and Associate Dean, Research and Global Health
University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene

2. Key activities of the APNLC during 2015/16
June 20-24, 2016 APNLC Annual Meeting
Education Committee ongoing work
Pacific Island Network of Nursing Program Directors groups ongoing work
Chief Nurses Committee ongoing work
Research Committee ongoing work
Centennial celebration of nursing in American Samoa

3. APNLC Annual Meeting
The annual APNLC meeting was hosted by the Republic of the Marshall Islands In Majuro. (June 20-24, 2016)
Groups that had been working via distance had a opportunity to work in person and dialogue extensively about ongoing projects, issues and opportunities

4. Five year APNLC strategic plan
APNLC has a 5 year strategic plan
Key elements address:
Non communicable diseases
Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases
Nursing Education
Quality Assurance
Practice/Standards/Policy
Specialty Nursing Practice
Connectivity

5. Education Committee and PINNED Work
PREPARATION OF HS GRADUATES: HS graduates are not adequately prepared for CC academic work in nursing. Specific difficulties with English & Math skills.
Palau Community College (PCC) and Northern Marianas College (NMC) has also been working closely with public school systems
EMPLOYMENT OF NEW GRADUATE RN’S: New graduates from the local community colleges need to be able to secure employment as a nurse as soon as they graduate.
Currently in some jurisdictions employment is often delayed (usually related to funding)
If you invest in educating a nurse, be sure you have a job for them
CAREER LADDER FOR ADVANCED DEGREE IN NURSING: A structure for such needs to be developed so that there are articulated roles for BS, MS (and ultimately NP and PhD prepared nurses)
The whole system needs to understand the role

6. Chief Nurses Committee ongoing work
Key focus is nursing workforce assessment relative to needs in terms of numbers and skill mix. Precursor to such assessment is understating patient volume, type and levels of nursing care required. 1. Developed a simple tool to assess acuity of nursing intensity requirements in hospitals; validated the tool in Yap and Palau (each can actually use the tool now) 2. Reviewed at APNLC by other Chief Nurses 3. Will be rolled out to RMI (Majuro and Ebeye, and FSM) in December Based on the above information, skill mix and numbers of nurses can actually then be calculated using pre set ratios

7. Research Committee ongoing work
Extension of a PhD project from K. Wood, (UOG faculty member) . Examined factors that influence breastfeeding among Chuukese women who relocate to Guam.
APNLC Research committee will now examine breastfeeding patterns and factors that influence exclusive vs. bottle feeding of newborn infants across FSM. Funding from the APNLC Research Committee fund and in kind from UH

8. So… Where are the opportunities to strengthen nursing in the USAPI?
Include nursing at the policy table
Really examine what nurses do in each jurisdiction
Assure that there are realistic standards of nursing care, implement a quality improvement program that maps to established standards, follow through on response to findings
Strengthen the ongoing education endeavors such as the RN to BS program supported by many of the jurisdictions
Expect and support inter-professional collaboration, assure that ex-pat professionals hired understand inter-professional collaboration
Invest in community health sector nursing, (as chronic NCD’s and larger numbers of elders will shift care from hospital to community- where the care is often better, and costs are much lower)
Mahalo!