Executive Nurse Fellows Alumni Association
Regional Meeting
Meeting Date: Friday, May 18, 2012
Time: 10:30 am to 4:00 pm
Location: Visiting Nurse Service of New York
107 E. 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
Guest Speaker(s): Dr. Diana Mason, FAAN, Rudin Professor of Nursing, Hunter College
Co-Director of the Center for Health, Media and Policy
Mary Ann Christopher, MSN, RN, FAAN
CEO
Visiting Nurse Association of New York
Agenda:
TBD
Background:
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows (RWJ ENF) program is a threeyear advanced leadership program for nurses who aspire to lead and shape health care locally
and nationally. Fellows develop advanced leadership competencies and skills that strengthen
their ability to lead and effect change in diverse health care settings.
The aim to develop a national cadre of nurse leaders able to stimulate change and transform
health care in America.
The ENF Program’s Alumni Association was established in 2000 with purpose of sustaining the
synergy of the fellowship and among and leveraging their collective power to promote
improvement in health care. The ENF Alumni Association has a national membership of over
220 executive nurse leaders representing academia, service, and public health. The ENF Alumni
Board has been working to assure viability of this network and establish a plan for long term
success focused on member priorities and leadership challenges in health care.
In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a national report entitled The Future of
Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health with eight key recommendations to help advance
comprehensive change in health care for patients and the country (www.iom.edu/nursing). The
ENF Alumni Association has selected one of the IOM recommendations focused on
Transformational Leadership using New York to pilot test a regional networking event by April
2012.
Purpose of Regional Meeting:
The aim of this pilot is to test the concept of regional ENF alumni networking events as a costeffective and efficient strategy to support a learning community and information exchange
dedicated to advancing nursing leadership. A key theme and focus for the regional meeting will
be creating action related to Transformational Leadership, one of the IOM Future of Nursing
recommendations. As part of leadership engagement and development, the report suggests the
following areas of focus:
1. Nurses will need leadership skills and competencies to act as full partners with
physicians and other health professionals in redesign and reform efforts across the health
care system.
2. Nurses must see policy as something they can shape and develop rather than something
that happens to them
3. Nurses must build new partnerships with other clinicians, business owners,
philanthropists, elected officials, and the public to help realize improvements
4. Nurses need to be viewed as thoughtful strategists (vs functional doers)
5. The three highlighted pathways the report identifies as critical to transforming leadership
are: Mentorship, leadership programs for nurses, and involvement in the policy-making
process
Rationale:
Currently, the regional action coalitions have focused on nursing education and the 80/20
recommendations. There appears to be little collective action related to developing the nurse
leader of the future. The pilot may serve as a catalyst to develop independent regional leadership
coalitions that work in concert with the RWJENF regional events.
At this first meeting, we will explore effective methods and strategies to support alumni
collaboration that yields positive leadership development and expands collaboration with other
stakeholders. The five RWJENF core competencies provide a framework for transformational
leadership:
 Self-knowledge
 Strategic vision
 Risk taking and creativity
 Interpersonal and communication effectiveness
 Skills in creating change
Potential outcomes:
 Leverage power of RWJENF alumni to redesign and reform efforts in health care
delivery
 Leaders learn lessons from peers to spur innovation, prevent redundancies, stimulate new
partnerships and models of care across the continuum
 Engage nurses in the policy-making process as strategic leaders
Contacts:
Wanda Montalvo
Wmontalvo1@aol.com
(718) 981-4743
Suzanne Boyle
smb9009@nyp.org
(212) 746-4623