Texas Team URG Nursing Fund

About this Fund

A dedicated team of nurses in El Paso approached the Paso del Norte Community Foundation to partner on an initiative to support and advance nursing in the region.  The members of the “Texas Team Upper Rio Grande” are part of the Campaign for Action, a national initiative to guide implementation of the recommendations in The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, a landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report. 

The Campaign envisions a health care system where all Americans have access to high-quality care, with nurses contributing to the full extent of their capabilities. It is coordinated through the Center to Champion Nursing in America (CCNA), an initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The Campaign includes 51 state Action Coalitions and a wide range of health care providers, consumer advocates, policy-makers, and business, academic and philanthropic leaders. The Texas Team is our state’s action coalition, cosponsored by TNA and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas. The Upper Rio Grande Region (URGR) Texas Team is the action coalition that covers El Paso, Hudspeth and surrounding counties.

The Texas Team URGR is co-lead by Gloria Loera DNP, RN, and Linda Lawson DNP, RN, and is working within the region to actualize the four key recommendations of the IOM report: 

1. Nurses should practice to the full extent of their education and training.
2. Nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progress.
3. Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health care professionals, in redesigning health care in the U.S.
4. Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and an improved information infrastructure.

With these recommendations in mind, the URGR Texas Team has provided educational and learning opportunities to move our community towards actualizing the IOM FON report recommendation.