The nurse competence in aging initiative: Encouraging expertise in the care of older adults.

AJN t September 2006 t Vol. 106, No. 9 93 and produce better outcomes. Yet few nurses have had the opportunity to gain such knowledge, either through education or at work. Nurse Competence in Aging (NCA) is a fiveyear initiative created in 2002 through an alliance of the ANA, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), and the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing (Hartford Institute). Funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies, through the American Nurses Foundation, the initiative addresses the need to ensure competence in geriatrics among nursing specialties in which nurses serve older patients. Collectively, the associations that represent these specialties have a membership of over 400,000 practicing nurses, who work in settings such as critical care and medical–surgical units, oncology, rehabilitation, and hospice. The main objective of the NCA initiative is to help associations to embrace the concept of, and individual nurses to adopt, “dual professionalism” in geriatrics and another specialty practice. (Throughout this article the term nurses refers to RNs; the term geriatrics refers to both geriatric and gerontological practice.)