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Aim: This paper discusses four main strategies for addressing nursing shortages that have been persistent, widespread and growing. Fallout from the COVID‐19 pandemic might offer valuable impetus to address this tenacious challenge. Background: Nursing shortages are common, widespread and have been persistent for most of a century. Many of the reasons behind these shortages are well known and are themselves enduring, as are the types of strategies put forward for addressing them. These strategies can generally be classified into four main categories: enhancing retention, improving recruitment, encouraging return to practice and drawing on international human resources. The COVID‐19 pandemic is the latest major threat to ensuring a sufficiently sized and skilled nursing workforce. Many nurses have succumbed to burnout as well the plethora of factors that predated the pandemic and have a negative impact on nurse wellbeing, turnover and intention to leave. Sources of evidence: This discussion paper draws on international sources of evidence. Discussion/conclusion: This paper highlights how many of the factors behind and strategies for addressing nursing shortages at the local, national and global levels are widely studied and known. A sustained combination of strategies that focus both within and beyond health and nursing, including on the broader social context, is necessary. While COVID‐19 has been extremely damaging, it might present an opportunity to make sustainable, effective reforms to address nursing shortages. Implications for policy: Knowledge users must recognise that a combination of approaches across the gamut of policies that influence nursing workforces is necessary to address nursing shortages. Attention must also focus on factors beyond nursing and healthcare if shortages are to be remedied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the experience of nurses involved in decision‐making to transfer residents from a residential aged care facility (RACF) to their local hospital emergency department. This paper reports on the findings of the second phase of a two‐phase study. Methods: Qualitative semi‐structured interviews with 19 aged care nurses were conducted. Interviews were audio‐taped and transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis was carried out. Results: The analysis revealed five major themes that influenced decision‐making in relation to the transfer of a resident from the residential aged care facility to the emergency department: conflict with key stakeholders; knowledge and experience; policy and process; stakeholder perception; and recognition and support. Conclusions: Robust outreach programs, support from other health‐care professionals, and improving interdisciplinary understanding and communication between aged care nurses, paramedics and the emergency department would be advantageous to ensure effective care delivery and decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This paper explores the potential for incorporating big data in nursing regulators' decision‐making and policy development. Big data, commonly described as the extensive volume of information that individuals and agencies generate daily, is a concept familiar to the business community but is only beginning to be explored by the public sector. Background: Using insights gained from a recent research project, the College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta, in Canada is creating an organizational culture of data‐driven decision‐making throughout its regulatory and professional functions. The goal is to enable the organization to respond quickly and profoundly to nursing issues in a rapidly changing healthcare environment. Sources of evidence: The evidence includes a review of the Learning from Experience: Improving the Process of Internationally Educated Nurses' Applications for Registration (LFE) research project (2011–2016), combined with a literature review on data‐driven decision‐making within nursing and healthcare settings, and the incorporation of big data in the private and public sectors, primarily in North America. Discussion: This paper discusses experience and, more broadly, how data can enhance the rigour and integrity of nursing and health policy. Conclusion: Nursing regulatory bodies have access to extensive data, and the opportunity to use these data to inform decision‐making and policy development by investing in how it is captured, analysed and incorporated into decision‐making processes. Implications for Nursing and Health Policy: Understanding and using big data is a critical part of developing relevant, sound and credible policy. Rigorous collection and analysis of big data supports the integrity of the evidence used by nurse regulators in developing nursing and health policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The advent of the COVID‐19 pandemic necessitated the Botswana Presidential Task Force, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW), to devise strategies to utilize the already overburdened health personnel to combat the spread of the coronavirus. This descriptive case study aimed to describe nurses' role during COVID‐19 in Botswana. Design and methods: A case study analysis was used to describe nurses' roles during COVID‐19. Data were collected through observing events in various health facilities and various media platforms that described how nurses had to position themselves to combat the pandemic. Content analysis was done by coding and developing categories that put like content together and generate thematic areas. Results: Nurses from different sectors were redeployed to assist in setting up different units at the COVID‐19 makeshift hospital, taking away from the already understaffed section of health care workers resulting in the overburden and work overload. Furthermore, nurses continued with their regular day‐to‐day nursing care duties in various healthcare settings, albeit under a severe shortage due to the national response to COVID‐19. Conclusion: Adaptations and experiential strategies enabled the distribution of the nursing workforce to cover all locations to curb the spread of COVID‐19 despite the challenges encountered. Recommendations and lessons learned on how to prepare for future pandemics are also discussed. Clinical relevance: Due to their large numbers, nurses formed the backbone of the Botswana COVID‐19 response strategy. Therefore, policy‐makers should be responsive to the nurses' perspectives when developing strategic policies on how to deal with pandemics based on their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparing the world to manage future pandemics must take priority. It is clear that we were not prepared for the COVID‐19 pandemic which continues to cause great suffering around the world. Nurses and other health professionals everywhere must be involved in health policy planning and implementation of public health measures to combat this and future pandemics. Such preparation needs community policy involvement at grassroots levels and needs to be collaboratively instigated at international levels. The death so far of over 2000 nurses is unacceptable in this pandemic, and we need to better protect and sustain the workforce. The International Council of Nurses has been instrumental in data gathering of nurses' experiences during COVID‐19. Key points from analysis of this data have been included in Second Progress Report of the World Health Organization's Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. This paper summarises the key messages from this report, as well as the nursing shortage. The International Council of Nurses resounds the call for massive investment in nursing education, leadership and jobs, as well as protection for our nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Severe Behaviour Response Team (SBRT) program, which was established in 2015 to support aged care residents with dementia experiencing very severe and extreme responsive behaviours received far fewer referrals than projected during its first year. This article describes the outcomes of a brief survey to identify potential barriers to referrals and identify opportunities to improve the uptake of the service. Methods: A pragmatic, quasi‐experimental study was conducted involving clinical leads working in a representative sample of care homes that had not used the SBRT. The study was part of the formative evaluation activities of an ongoing program evaluation. Results: Of the 53 clinical leads that participated in the survey, one‐third had not heard of the SBRT prior to being contacted. The remaining two‐thirds (n = 36) had not used the service due to the availability of existing resources and concerns regarding responsiveness of, and access to, the new service. Conclusions: Three themes emerged from the study relating to awareness of the service, responsiveness and the interface between local aged care and health services. Referrals increased following interventions to address the first two themes; however, they continue to remain well below the number projected. This indicates a fundamental disconnection between the policy design process and the day‐to‐day experience of residential aged care. The study highlights the importance of aged care clinical leads being engaged in dementia policy and program development processes to support improved targeting of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: We highlight key components of emerging academic structures in global health nursing and explain how this investment can expand nursing's broader engagement in global health policy development. Background: Engaging nursing in global health policy development is vital to ensure the scale‐up of effective health programmes. Globally, nurses promote development of interprofessional healthcare teams who are responsible for translating sound global health policy and evidence‐based programming into practice. However, the role of nurses within policy forums and on influential decision‐making bodies within the global health space remains limited, which reinforces suboptimal global health policy implementation. Introduction: Investment in globally engaged academic structures is an important way to expand participation of nursing in global health policy development. Sources of evidence: A review of the current knowledge and substantive findings related to academic structures promoting global health nursing was conducted, and included a directed search of institutional websites, related grey and peer‐reviewed literature, and communication with top‐tier schools of nursing in the United States, to identify specific developments in global health nursing academic structures. Discussion/Conclusion: Effective academic structures promoting global health nursing include a framework of four critical components – Research, Education, Policy and Partnership. Academic structure type and core activities vary depending on institutional priorities. Implications for nursing, health and social policy: Increasingly, global health research, driven by individual nursing investigators, is expanding; however, in order to translate these advances into expanded involvement in global health policy development, academic structures within schools of nursing need to systematically expand educational opportunities, bolster research capacity and promote partnership with policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]