We have heard the stories before—ideas scrawled on a cocktail napkin, a gathering of inspired folks around a bowl of chips. These are the birthplaces of great ideas.
We have retold the anecdotes of how a small group of committed leaders put their heads together and thought big--really big. They assessed needs, listened to concerns, and collectively brainstormed without limitations.
I have heard Dr. Claire Fagin tell the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC) legend many times. More than 10 years ago over lunch, Claire Fagin, together with Hartford’s Executive Director, Dr. Corinne Rieder, and then–Senior Program Officer Dr. Donna Regenstreif, discussed ways to address the lack of nurses skilled to care for our aging society.
According to Dr. Fagin, “We had to meet the need for leadership in geriatric nursing. We had very few nurses prepared at the undergraduate level, nothing in the curriculum, and we were not preparing people for leadership roles or increasing the numbers at the doctoral level who could teach, do research, and excel at demonstrating what geriatric nursing is all about.”
From this lunch, our Hartford BAGNC scholarship program housed at the American Academy of Nursing was born. I have enjoyed this story again and again because it demonstrates a strategic philanthropic response to a real societal need.
And while we are enamored with the beginnings, I always love a good ending—or in this case, strong 10-year outcomes.
Dr. Shoshanna Sofaer, our external evaluator, along with her team at Baruch College, namely Kirsten Firminger, teamed up with Dr. Patricia Archbold and Ms. Patty Franklin at the BAGNC coordinating center, as well as our communications gurus at Strategic Communications and Planning to produce the first in a series of evaluation briefs on specific Hartford nursing programs.
This 12-page BAGNC report shares personal stories and impressive accomplishments of our 170+ BAGNC Pre-doctoral Scholars and Claire M. Fagin Post-doctoral Fellows and their contributions to academic geriatric nursing. For example, current and former Scholars and Fellows report having received over $72 million in grants, and teaching over 11,000 undergraduate students in courses containing over 50% gero content. Consistent with our vision to support gero-expert faculty who will be in the classroom educating all nursing students—regardless of their specialty—to provide quality care for our aging population, 95.5% of alumni Fellows are nursing faculty.
It is rewarding as a funder, grantee, scholarship recipient, or the architect of a big idea to see the fruits of your labor. Ten years later, the BAGNC program is advancing academic geriatric nursing and improving the health of older Americans through its recipients’ outstanding teaching and innovative research.
As noted by Dr. Sofaer, “It isn't all that common for evaluators to be able to show an important impact, but the BAGNC awards program is indeed having an impact, and its impact is certainly going to grow over the years to come as alumni move into more and more leadership roles.”
We at Hartford could not be more proud, and we celebrate all those cocktail napkins, bowls of chips, and lunch dates that have inspired successful programs to improve the health of older adults.
Stay tuned for more BAGNC highlights in our upcoming photo-driven annual report, “A Day in the Life of an Academic Geriatric Nurse.”