Chicago LEADS Nursing Pilot

Chicago’s healthcare system, like most around the country, operates with a shortage of nurses every day.  The shortage directly impacts the quality of care, and will worsen as our population ages.

To eliminate this shortage, LEADS convened employers and educational institutions, and set an aggressive goal of eliminating the nursing shortage by 2012.

As a result, a plan for hospitals to provide advance practice nurses to teach in colleges was developed in collaboration with local colleges, which together will have added 630 new student seats by the 2009 academic year.  In addition, a program to retain students already in nursing schools was expanded, and one to train lower level hospital employees to move into more skilled clinical occupations such as nursing was created.  All together, Chicago has developed and is implementing a local solution to a significant national problem.