Things are looking up for education and diversity in the nursing workforce. Those are among other upticks reflected in a recent update to the Dashboard, which is the tracking tool used by the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action.

The primary indicators on the Dashboard, updated in June, stand for the recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine in its 2010 report on the future of nursing. Those major categories are each sliced more finely to include other categories—some two dozen secondary indicators—and that is what has just been updated.

Under doctoral degrees, for example, are two categories showing increases: the secondary indicator known as “Total fall enrollment in nursing doctorate programs” (on the rise especially with DNP, or doctor of nursing practice, enrollments); and “Number of people receiving nursing doctoral degrees annually” is also going up.

Under education, three categories show improvement:

• Number and percent of U.S.-educated, first-time NCLEX-takers with BSN
• Number of RN‐to‐BSN graduates annually
• Number of hospitals in the United States with Magnet status (a standard conferred by the American Nurses Credentialing Center)

Diversity of the nursing workforce is up as well, with positive trends in the numbers of men in nursing as well as those from minority racial and ethnic groups.

You can find all the indicators two ways from the home page:

• From issues, go to progress on the left side of each of those pages
• From resources, see Dashboard indicators under tools and tips.

We’ll be updating these twice a year from now on.