a. New Jersey Colleagues in Caring collaborative was established in 1996 through a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to assist nursing schools, hospitals and other nursing service institutions to initiate concerted workforce development systems within the State; b. Under the terms of the grant, New Jersey Colleagues in Caring is responsible for: conducting a comprehensive assessment of the current and projected nursing care needs in the State; developing a dependable system for estimating future needs; analyzing the capacity of the State’s nursing workforce to meet these needs and the area’s educational infrastructure to produce the numbers and types of nursing professionals required; developing a Statewide nursing workforce consortium among schools, providers and other relevant institutions to plan and implement State models that enhance educational and career mobility for nurses; and establishing a formal mechanism to keep the consortium in place over the long term so that monitoring of nursing care needs and the building of a workforce with corresponding strengths become ongoing components of the State’s health care structure;

c. Establishment of an independent nursing center, which will function as a future-oriented research and development organization that will develop and disseminate objective information and provide an ongoing strategy for the allocation of State resources directed toward the nursing work force, will assure the best possible nursing care for the residents of the State; and

d. Therefore, it is appropriate to establish the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing to provide an investment in nursing by ensuring that the strategic work begun by New Jersey Colleagues in Caring continues under a State-supported infrastructure.

L.2002,c.116,s.1.