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The public’s view of the healthcare industry and related institutions is trending downward. Learn how we’re working to build confidence in health and biomedical sciences.
Our collective health and well-being is built on a foundation of trust — in each other, our institutions, in medicine and science. Trust is our most basic currency in every sector — health, education, economic development. It is the needle and thread for our fraying social fabric.
A decline in interpersonal and institutional trust in the United States and across countries and economies has been tracked for decades by global researchers, including the Pew Research Center, Gallup and the World Values Survey. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated that trend and brought it into sharp relief in the United States, which achieved early immunization success, then struggled to vaccinate recalcitrant populations.
According to the research and statistics hub Our World in Data, the United States ranked 17th among nations in the number of individuals fully vaccinated per 100 people. Roughly half the population was fully vaccinated by mid-August, as the highly transmissible Delta variant tore through communities and states where conspiracy, disinformation and structural barriers put people at continued risk for COVID-19.
In a 2021 poll of more than 12,000 people, the African American Research Collaborative and the Commonwealth Fund found more than 40% of African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans reported that they or a member of their household were denied appropriate medical care because of their race, ethnicity or language. Among unvaccinated African Americans, 27% said “discrimination by medical professionals against Black people made it hard to trust COVID-19 vaccine safety and made them less likely to get vaccinated.”
“ Trust is ‘a confident relationship to the unknown.’” Rachel BotsmanDisease data reveals systemic distrust in American health care. We saw a record number of overdose deaths in 2020 — more than 93,000 — with a 30% increase in 28 states. A majority of American adults — 60% — live with at least one chronic condition, like heart disease, cancer or diabetes; 40% live with two or more. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and disability, and the leading drivers of the nation’s $3.8 trillion in annual healthcare costs.
Trust is “a confident relationship to the unknown,” according to Rachel Botsman, Oxford University lecturer, author and researcher on trust and technology, who sees a confluence of forces behind widespread loss of trust — a lack of accountability for the privileged that engenders fear, anger and suspicion, and information technologies that, according to Ms. Botsman, encourage “distributed trust” across networks.
“We click, we swipe, we accept, we share,” Ms. Botsman said. “It’s like trust on speed. We don’t know who to trust. In this vacuum, you hear voices rise up that are really good at speaking to our feelings, but aren’t necessarily trustworthy.”
This crisis of trust creates opportunities for Rosalind Franklin University to redesign systems that are more accountable, more inclusive and more honest. We rely on the power of relationships, forged over time, to build trust through shared values and vision, making it possible to solve complex problems. We look to our heroic health professionals, who offer compassionate care to patients in their time of greatest need, as sources of trust. And we find trust in science, whose practitioners collaborated across the globe to produce, in record speed, a safe and highly effective COVID-19 vaccine.
As members of a larger community of practice in health, biomedical science and education, we can help rebuild trust across our nation as we advocate for equitable systems and a vision of sustained health and wellness for all people and their communities.
When leaders from Rosalind Franklin University, Lake Forest College and Northwestern Medicine (NM) Lake Forest Hospital — close geographical neighbors — sat down in early 2020 to discuss how they might leverage their resources to meet their respective needs, a shared vision took root: a highly innovative nursing education-to-workforce pathway, built together and designed to meet the community’s needs.
The tripartite Partnership Advisory Council, in collaboration with community stakeholders, is championing RFU’s College of Nursing (CON), expected to open in fall 2022. Other health system and academic nursing partnerships are under development, as the need is urgent. Across the nation, health systems are struggling with a shortage of nurses, and the strain of COVID-19 is making it worse. The 2021 McKinsey Report on Nursing found that 22% of nurses surveyed might leave their direct patient care positions by 2022. Research shows that highly educated nurses add tremendous value: They help improve patient outcomes; decrease complications and miscommunication; and lower the cost of healthcare delivery.
“Our health system partners are telling us that graduates who enter into nursing practice at the master’s degree level come equipped with the foundational knowledge needed to effectively contribute to the development and implementation of system-level innovations in nursing models of care,” said Sandra Larson, PhD, CRNA, APN, FNAP, founding CON dean and vice president for partnerships. “We want to work with them to align resources to achieve strategic goals for nursing excellence.”
“ We're excited to work with RFU on developing innovative curricula that can have a big impact on patient outcomes and increase opportunities for our nurses.” Denise MajeskiRFU’s CON envisions innovative graduate curricula to be designed by RFU and NM nursing administrators that align academic and professional development with NM’s workforce needs. Areas of collaboration include research, practice, workforce planning and faculty development — NM nurses can earn advanced degrees through RFU and apply for faculty appointments.
“Together, we’re advancing evidence-based nursing practice,” Dr. Larson said. “We’re developing a highly-qualified, entry-level RN workforce and providing career mobility pathways for Northwestern nurses that promote their retention within the NM system, while supporting the delivery of the highest level of nursing care.”
“We’re excited to work with RFU on developing innovative curricula that can have a big impact on patient outcomes and increase opportunities for our nurses,” said Denise Majeski, MSN, RN, NM Lake Forest Hospital vice president operations/Bernthal chief nurse executive. “We need an educational partner that can help us train practice-ready nurses who can implement evidence-based practice for clinical care and decision-making. We need nurses who collaborate, communicate and advance clinical practice with the interprofessional team to provide the highest quality care to our patients.”
As of March 2020, more than 80 million people — roughly one-quarter of the country — lived in an area with a shortage of health professionals.
Nursing schools should continue expanding efforts to recruit and support diverse students and faculty who reflect the populations they serve.
The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the united states built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. Source: "The future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity." National Academy of Medicine May 2021
High technical and social tasks are a hallmark of the fastest-growing job sectors in the United States, according to Harvard University’s recent “Working to Learn” report, which finds that partnerships between educators and employers that integrate work and learning are rare but increasingly crucial for supporting learners in developing social skills for work settings. They also help build connections that enhance economic mobility.
Step 1 |
Middle School |
Step 2 |
High School |
Step 3 |
Undergraduate Education
Lake Forest College and College of Lake County
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Step 4 |
Experiential Training
Internships/Work-Study
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Step 5 |
Graduate Education
ROSALIND FRANKLN UNIVERSITY
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Step 6 |
Employment
Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital or other Lake County Healthcare Facility
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RFU’s nursing pathway will be fed, in part, through its Health Professions Program partnership with LFC. The pipeline, which features dual-degree pathways in seven health professions programs, prepares undergraduate students through a strong liberal arts education and provides exposure and mentorship geared for health and research professions. Students from LFC and the College of Lake County can receive mentoring as early as high school. Attracting more diverse students into the pathway is a priority. Our strong partnerships in underserved communities, including with local schools in North Chicago, Waukegan and Round Lake, will help us achieve that goal.