Patient safety and outcomes are dependent on the educational preparation of professional nurses. Recent pressure from governments to train and graduate nurses more quickly, in order to address the nursing shortage, does not recognize the import of the level of educational preparation required of nurses.

“The Case for Healthier Canadians: Nursing Workforce Education for the 21st Century” represents the collective thinking, and unified voice of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education in Canada. The result of an extensive national consultative process launched at a Nursing Education Summit in 2008, it identifies the three major areas where funding is required to ensure the availability and quality of registered nurses in Canada’s health care system: Faculty and program infrastructure, innovative initiatives in technology, and nursing research and knowledge translation.

Provincial and territorial nursing programs require funding to maintain the educational preparation of Canada’s registered nurses, which is directly related to patient safety and outcomes. Preserving the safety of Canadians is of paramount importance. Nurses play a major role in Canadian health care delivery. Ensuring sufficient education of nurses, before they enter the practice environment, will guarantee better patient outcomes, and safer health care delivery. In turn this will provide the Canadian public with confidence in their care and the care of their loved ones.

The Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing is calling for action from the Federal Government to improve patient safety and outcomes by investing in one of the pillars of the health Care System: our Nurses.  The key to a vibrant and viable health care system is now in the hands of the decision-makers.

For More information Please Contact: 

Siobhan Bond
Communications Program Officer
sbond@casn.ca