Kansas Age-Friendly Nursing Workforce Forum

On June 9, 2025, the Kansas 4M Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) hosted the inaugural Kansas Age-Friendly Nursing Workforce Forum in Topeka, Kansas. This statewide event brought together 55 nursing home professionals and nurse educators from rural and underserved communities to address critical workforce challenges and advance Age-Friendly Health Systems (4Ms) care: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility.

The forum featured a keynote presentation by Alice Bonner, Senior Advisor for Aging, Institute for Healthcare Improvenent and fireside chat introducing the 4Ms framework, followed by interactive small-group sessions. Participants collaborated to identify:

• Opportunities and challenges for integrating age-friendly nursing education into clinical care.
• Strategies to increase comfort and adoption of 4Ms care in long-term care settings.
• Actions to foster partnerships across organizations and advance strategic planning.

Key Outcomes:

• Improvement in participants’ competencies related to age-friendly nursing education and interprofessional collaboration.
• Strong commitment to implementing evidence-based 4Ms care and building an age-friendly Kansas nursing workforce.

Why It Matters:

Kansas faces a shortage of nurses and nursing faculty, limiting the capacity to meet growing care needs for older adults. This forum marks a critical step toward bridging the “know-do” gap and preparing the current and future workforce for age-friendly and dementia-friendly care.

Partners:

University of Kansas School of Nursing, Kansas Nursing Workforce Center, Kansas Health Care Association, University of Kansas Area Health Education Center, and Washburn University School of Nursing.

Learn about some of the programs Kansas 4M will offer:

Kansas 4M Champions 

Program to engage health and social care providers
Launching Soon

In collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and American Hospital Association, members of the current health and social care workforce will serve as leads with teams recruited from their sites and participate in Age-Friendly Action Communities and their sites will achieve and maintain Level 1 and Level 2 recognition.  

Increasing the Nurse Workforce in Nursing Homes 

Program to engage nurses, college and university leaders and our nursing home industry
Launching Soon

The Kansas Nursing Workforce Center, based at KU School of Nursing, will bring together academic institutions that prepare nurses and representatives of the state’s nursing home industry to develop and integrate age-friendly and dementia-friendly didactic and clinical care learning opportunities into the curriculum. The overall goal is to increase the number of nurses who elect to practice in nursing homes after graduation. 

Integrated Arts Research Initiative

Program to engage Kansas artists

In collaboration with the University of Kansas Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas 4M will develop a one-year fellowship opportunity. Open to one Kansas artist each year who will be embedded with the health and social care workforce and students in sites or delivery systems serving older adults in rural or underserved communities, the opportunity will offer a novel arts research perspective. The fellowship culminates in an exhibit reflecting on the 4Ms.