Advancing the status of nursing in Egypt: the project to promote the development of the High Institutes of Nursing.
This paper discusses the successes and the challenges of a 3-year project to improve the image and status of nursing in Egypt. Several strategies were developed and tested. These activities focused on transforming nurse-training and the nursing role to the status of professional education and practice. These activities have a broad applicability for other countries engaged in similar efforts. Successful interventions included the following: (1) A board composed of health professionals, health policy-makers, and the nursing trade union was established, providing opportunity for interprofessional dialogue; (2) criteria that would enable the High Institutes of Nursing (HINs) to quality for university faculty status were identified; (3) HINs shared their resources in order to enable lesser developed HINs to strengthen their academic curricula, initiate graduate degree programs and provide for faculty development; (4) a set of standards for nursing clinical practice was developed; and (5) Demonstration Clinical Units were established as model settings for improving nursing clinical skills. Project trajectories that remain to be accomplished include final development and promulgation of a set of nursing standards, development of a nursing organization that can speak for professional as well as trade issues and upgrading the educational pathway to the nursing profession.
Fullerton
J T
JT
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego, USA.
Sukkary-Stolba
S
S
D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004534:Egypt; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D009729:Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D016730:Program Development; D011641:Public Relations