ANCC Launches Initiative to Support Nurse Workforce in New York
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Authored by Dr. Pam Vollmer, DNP, RN, AMB-BC, NPD-BC, Accredited Provider Program Director for CE Ready
The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has launched a transformative initiative designed to uplift and sustain New York’s nursing workforce. Partnering with the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, this program focuses on three interconnected goals: empowering nurses, reducing burnout, and elevating care for underserved populations.
What Nurses Need to Know
In May 2025, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation launched a $51 million nurse workforce development initiative across 13 safety net hospitals in New York State. Each hospital receives between $1 and $5 million over five years to pursue ANCC Magnet Recognition or Pathway to Excellence — two nationally recognized frameworks for nursing excellence. The initiative will support more than 6,500 nurses and improve care for over 7 million outpatients. Funding also covers nurse residency programs, virtual nursing teams, and mental health resources for frontline staff.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s 2024 workforce study found that more than 138,000 nurses left the workforce since 2022, and nearly 40% of those still practicing plan to leave by 2029. This initiative treats that crisis as a structural problem — not a personal one.
CE Ready, an ANCC-accredited continuing education provider (Provider Number P0986), offers courses in professional development and clinical practice that help nurses build sustainable careers. Explore CE Ready’s course catalog to find what fits your practice.
The charge nurse pulls you aside at hour ten. The float they promised isn’t coming, two of your patients are escalating, and the colleague you usually lean on called out this morning. You adapt — you always do. But somewhere in those last two hours, a thought surfaces that you don’t say out loud: how much longer can this work? That thought isn’t weakness. It is data. And after years of watching nurses absorb that strain in silence, some of the profession’s most significant institutional players are finally responding with real resources.
The Nursing Workforce Crisis That Made This Investment Necessary
The numbers behind nurse burnout are not abstract. They represent real people leaving real jobs — and real patients losing the continuity of care they depend on.
The NCSBN’s 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study found that more than 138,000 nurses left the workforce since 2022. Nearly 40% of nurses currently in practice report intent to leave by 2029. That is not a pipeline problem. It is a retention crisis — and retention crises are almost always rooted in working conditions, not dedication.
Safety net hospitals face some of the most demanding conditions in the system. They serve high proportions of Medicaid patients, uninsured individuals, and communities with limited access to care. Staffing ratios are stretched. Resources are limited. Turnover is high. The nurses who stay in these environments often do so out of deep commitment to the populations they serve — not because the environment makes it easy.
New York State reflects these pressures acutely. A 2024 workforce report by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany identified sustained nursing shortages across the state’s acute care hospitals, particularly in facilities serving high-need communities. That report was a catalyst for what followed.
The $51 million commitment from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is the largest philanthropic nursing investment in New York State history. It exists because the data made the need impossible to ignore.
What the $51 Million Nurse Workforce Development Initiative Does
The Nursing Initiative, launched May 14, 2025, is a partnership between the ANCC and the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation — New York’s largest grantmaking organization focused on improving health outcomes in vulnerable communities. Thirteen hospitals across the state, from Binghamton to the Bronx, were selected through a competitive process from more than 50 applicants. Site visits with hospital leadership and a deliberate focus on geographic and institutional diversity shaped the final portfolio.
Each hospital receives between $1 and $5 million over five years to support three interconnected goals.
The first is pursuing ANCC Magnet Recognition or Pathway to Excellence designation. These are not ceremonial awards. They are evidence-based frameworks that require hospitals to make structural commitments to nursing excellence and then demonstrate measurable outcomes.
The second is launching or expanding nurse residency programs. New graduates who complete structured residency programs are significantly more likely to remain at the bedside beyond year two — the period when turnover is highest and most costly. Residency programs are a proven investment in long-term workforce stability.
The third is building innovative support systems for frontline nurses. This includes virtual nursing programs, peer support structures, and on-site mental health resources. These target the conditions that drive burnout — not just the symptoms it produces.
NYU Meyers College of Nursing will independently evaluate the initiative across its full five-year term, tracking outcomes in nurse retention, recruitment, engagement, and patient care quality.
ANCC Magnet Recognition: What It Means for Nurses on the Floor
If you have worked in a Magnet-recognized hospital, you already know that Magnet is different. If you haven’t, here is what matters most.
Magnet Recognition is the most prestigious designation the ANCC awards for nursing excellence. It recognizes healthcare organizations that demonstrate superior nursing outcomes, shared governance, innovative practice, and sustained professional development. The designation is not granted based on an application alone. Frontline nurses must validate the organization’s claims as part of the process — which means Magnet status reflects the actual nursing environment, not just what leadership says about it.
For nurses, Magnet recognition typically means greater autonomy at the bedside, more direct input into care decisions, and stronger institutional investment in professional growth. Research consistently links Magnet designation to lower nurse burnout, higher job satisfaction, and better patient outcomes. These are not coincidences. They reflect what happens when a hospital is structurally committed to making nursing sustainable.
The journey to Magnet is demanding. It requires documented evidence of nursing outcomes, ongoing quality improvement, transformational leadership, and professional development at every level. That rigor is exactly what makes it meaningful. A hospital does not achieve Magnet by writing a good application. It achieves Magnet by actually changing how it operates.
ANCC Pathway to Excellence: Building a Practice Environment Nurses Actually Want
Where Magnet Recognition focuses on nursing outcomes and organizational excellence, Pathway to Excellence focuses on the frontline nurse’s daily experience of work. The two designations are complementary. Some hospitals hold both simultaneously.
Pathway to Excellence recognizes organizations that have built a genuinely positive, empowering practice environment. The framework centers on six standards: shared decision-making, leadership, safety, quality, well-being, and professional development. None of those standards can be self-certified. Nurses across the organization must confirm the standards are being met before the designation is awarded — making it a real measure of workplace culture.
The comparison between the two designations is worth understanding clearly:
| Designation | Primary Focus | How Nurses Are Involved |
| ANCC Magnet Recognition | Nursing excellence, outcomes, innovation | Nurses validate organizational claims as part of the designation process |
| ANCC Pathway to Excellence | Positive practice environment, nurse well-being | Nurses must confirm standards are met before designation is awarded |
Both programs require hospitals to go beyond good intentions. Both are grounded in what nurses actually experience — not in what administrators report. That is what makes them useful as benchmarks for genuine nurse workforce development.
Nurse Residency Programs and Virtual Nursing: Why Both Matter for Workforce Sustainability
Two program elements in this initiative deserve closer attention because they address the workforce problem from angles the profession has historically underinvested in.
Nurse residency programs provide new graduates with a structured, supported transition into clinical practice. The research is consistent. Nurses who complete residency programs are significantly more likely to remain at the bedside past year two — the period when turnover is highest and most expensive. They develop clinical competence faster, report higher job satisfaction, and feel better prepared for the emotional demands of practice. For hospitals, the cost of running a residency program is substantially less than the cost of losing a new nurse and replacing them.
Virtual nursing places experienced nurses in remote support roles — handling documentation, discharge teaching, patient communication, and care coordination — while bedside nurses focus on direct clinical care. The model does two things at once. It keeps seasoned nurses in the workforce through roles that draw fully on their clinical expertise. And it reduces the documentation burden that ranks consistently among the top contributors to bedside burnout.
Neither approach is a complete solution on its own. Together, they represent a more sustainable workforce model — one that meets nurses where they are across career stages rather than simply asking them to keep absorbing more.
What This Nurse Workforce Development Initiative Means Outside New York
You may be reading this in Florida, Texas, or Georgia, wondering what a New York initiative has to do with your daily reality. The answer is more than you might expect.
The ANCC frameworks at the center of this initiative are national standards. Whether your hospital is pursuing Magnet Recognition, working toward Pathway to Excellence, or nowhere near either designation, the principles behind both programs apply to your practice environment. Shared governance, leadership access, well-being investment, and professional development are not New York priorities. They are the conditions under which nurses thrive — or don’t — everywhere.
The NCSBN data is also national. The 138,000 nurses who left the workforce since 2022 were not concentrated in one state. The 40% planning to leave by 2029 are spread across the country. Any initiative that demonstrates measurable solutions to retention and burnout creates a precedent advocates in every state can point to.
This initiative signals something broader, too. Large-scale philanthropic investment in nurse workforce development is rare. When $51 million goes specifically to address the structural conditions driving nurse turnover, it affirms what the profession has known for a long time: fixing burnout requires changing systems. That reframe matters — and it matters everywhere.
How Continuing Education Supports Nurse Workforce Development at Every Career Stage
Professional development is not incidental to workforce sustainability. It is central to it. Both ANCC Magnet Recognition and Pathway to Excellence treat ongoing education as a structural commitment — not an optional benefit — because the evidence supports that investment. Nurses with access to meaningful continuing education report higher engagement, stronger clinical confidence, and greater intention to stay in their roles.
That investment does not have to wait for your hospital to pursue a designation. You can build it now through your own CE choices.
CE Ready, an ANCC-accredited continuing education provider (Provider Number P0986), offers courses across professional development, communication, patient safety, and clinical practice — the content areas most directly linked to the engaged, resilient nursing career that both Magnet and Pathway to Excellence programs recognize and reward. Courses are self-paced, available online, and designed for nurses who need flexibility without sacrificing quality.
If you are a New York nurse, CE Ready’s New York page has courses designed for your state’s renewal requirements. For nurses in other states, CE Ready’s full state directory makes it easy to find options that meet your board’s specific requirements. And if you want to explore the full catalog first, CE Ready’s courses page is the place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the ANCC–Mother Cabrini nurse workforce development initiative?
A: The initiative is a $51 million partnership between the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, launched in May 2025. It provides grants of $1 to $5 million to 13 safety net hospitals across New York State over five years. Hospitals are using the funding to pursue ANCC Magnet Recognition or Pathway to Excellence designation, launch nurse residency programs, expand virtual nursing teams, and build mental health and peer support resources for frontline nurses. NYU Meyers College of Nursing is independently evaluating outcomes over the initiative’s full five-year term.
Q: What is ANCC Magnet Recognition, and why does it matter to working nurses?
A: ANCC Magnet Recognition is the most prestigious designation a healthcare organization can receive for nursing excellence. It requires hospitals to demonstrate superior nursing outcomes, shared governance, transformational leadership, and sustained professional development — and frontline nurses must validate those claims as part of the process. For nurses, Magnet recognition typically means greater bedside autonomy, stronger input into care decisions, and meaningful institutional investment in career growth. Research consistently links Magnet designation to lower burnout rates and higher nurse job satisfaction.
Q: How is ANCC Pathway to Excellence different from Magnet Recognition?
A: Both are ANCC designations, but they have different primary focuses. Magnet Recognition emphasizes nursing outcomes, innovation, and organizational excellence. Pathway to Excellence focuses on the frontline nurse’s daily experience — specifically whether the practice environment genuinely supports shared decision-making, safety, well-being, and professional development. Both require nurses themselves to confirm that standards are being met before a designation is awarded. Some hospitals pursue and hold both designations at the same time.
Q: What does the 2024 nursing workforce data show about burnout and retention?
A: The NCSBN’s 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study found that more than 138,000 nurses left the workforce since 2022, and nearly 40% of nurses currently in practice plan to leave by 2029. The data consistently points to working conditions — not personal dedication — as the primary driver of departures. Staffing ratios, limited leadership access, inadequate mental health support, and insufficient professional development investment are the leading contributors. This initiative addresses those conditions structurally rather than asking individual nurses to manage them on their own.
Q: How does continuing education support nurse workforce development?
A: Continuing education keeps nurses clinically current, professionally engaged, and better equipped for the full demands of practice — all of which are directly linked to longer careers and stronger retention. CE Ready offers ANCC-accredited continuing education (Provider Number P0986) across professional development, communication, patient safety, and clinical practice. Browse CE Ready’s full course catalog or find options matched to your state’s renewal requirements through CE Ready’s state directory.
References
American Nurses Credentialing Center. (2025, May 14). American Nurses Credentialing Center partners with Mother Cabrini Health Foundation to support nurse workforce development across New York State safety net hospitals [Press release]. https://www.nursingworld.org/news/news-releases/2025/american-nurses-credentialing-center-partners-with-mother-cabrini-health-foundation-to-support-nurse-workforce-development-across-new-york-state-safety-net-hospitals/
American Nurses Credentialing Center. (n.d.). ANCC Magnet Recognition Program. https://www.nursingworld.org/organizational-programs/magnet/
American Nurses Credentialing Center. (n.d.). ANCC Pathway to Excellence Program. https://www.nursingworld.org/organizational-programs/pathway/
Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. (2025, May 14). Mother Cabrini Health Foundation launches $51M grant program to support nurse workforce in safety net hospitals across New York State [Press release]. https://www.cabrinihealth.org/nursing-initiative-press-release/
National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2024). National nursing workforce study. https://www.ncsbn.org/workforce