Advancing the status of nursing in Egypt: the project to promote the development of the High Institutes of Nursing Original Research Article

This paper discusses the successes and the challenges of a 3-year project to improve the image and status of nursing in Egypt. Several strategies were developed and tested. These activities focused on transforming nursetraining and the nursing role to the status of professional education and practice. These activities have a broad applicability for other countries engaged in similar efforts. Successful interventions included the following: (1) A board composed of health professionals, health policy-makers, and the nursing trade union was established, providing opportunity for interprofessional dialogue; (2) criteria that would enable the High Institutes of Nursing (HINs) to quality for university faculty status were identified; (3) HINs shared their resources in order to enable lesser developed HINs to strengthen their academic curricula, initiate graduate degree programs and provide for faculty development; (4) a set of standards for nursing clinical practice was developed; and (5) Demonstration Clinical Units were established as model settings for improving nursing clinical skills. Project trajectories that remain to be accomplished include final development and promulgation of a set of nursing standards, development of a nursing organization that can speak for professional as well as trade issues and upgrading the educational pathway to the nursing profession.