Calling All Leaders

ing leaders to create a forum to address the enormous challenges that face the profession now, and will continue to do so over the next several years. Many in the profession have been addressing these challenges, typically within the confines of the organizations that employ them. There has been no focused forum where nurse leaders themselves have an intellectual space for dialogue and planning, for harnessing their collective experience and wisdom unfettered by organizational policy or politics. Collective leadership in times of crisis can offer an array of solutions that, if implemented cohesively, can make a significant difference. One of the purposes of ACEN is to provide such a forum. As a beginning step, the Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses has expanded its membership to include nurses in leadership positions across a wide variety of settings. Nurse executives from academic health organizations are still the core members of ACEN but welcome the inclusion of deans, research chairs and government and NGO nurse leaders. The response to this membership initiative has been very positive. Nurse leaders have expressed a strong interest and commitment to working together. The challenges facing nursing and healthcare in Canada are not unfamiliar to those in leadership positions. The greatest of these is the health human resource (HHR) crisis, which will intensify over the next decade. The shortage of healthcare professionals, particularly nurses and physicians, has been the subject of provincial and national reports, research programs and media releases. It has been the subject of many government and stakeholder meetings, and a topic of discussion over a period of three or four years for the federal/provincial/territorial Advisory Committee on Health Delivery and Human Resources (ACHDHR). First ministers agreed to coordinate efforts in the planning and management of HHR. Calling All Leaders