The International Academic Nursing Alliance (IANA): A useful nursing database

I know my blogs have been lacking lately…. let’s blame it on my comprehensive exams…. (which I passed by the way :^). Anyway, I have a couple of good posts in the works so be looking for a post concerning online DNP and PhD programs in nursing and upcoming profiles of important (but maybe little known) nurse leaders and researchers.

Today, I wanted to provide a brief overview of a useful database that many of you may be interested in. Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), the nursing honor society, has developed a database of international academic nursing information. Here, schools from all over the world can upload information on positions, students looking to be placed, research findings, and collaborations. Although fairly new and not quite overly expansive at this point, the database is growing. The more universities that participate, the more important the nursing database will become.

Housed at a separate URL from the nursing society at http://www.nursingalliance.org the database can be searched by the following fields: Faculty opportunities, Student placement opportunities, Curriculum, Research, and Evidence Based Practice. Nursing, an autonomous profession with its own body of knowledge, needs more open access databases like this. As quickly as today’s world is changing, good nursing information needs a method of dissemination that utilizes technology and bypasses the time constraints of peer-reviewed journal processes (a time constraint that makes many nursing findings obsolete, changed, or evolved by the time articles go to print). Likewise, global collaboration among nurses and universities will enhance nursing education and thus enhance the health of people and communities.

Thank you to STTI for continuing to lead nurses in global health initiatives and connections. I am a nurse and I do practice in a global community!!!!

Other Facts/Links of interest for STTI:

(If you aren’t a memember nurses…. find a local chapter and join)

• STTI home on the web: http://www.nursingsociety.org
• Did you know STTI has applied to be an NGO with the UN? How cool is that…. Go nursing!
• Did you know that STTI has worked with the WHO to set some international standards for nursing and midwife education?
• STTI Global Initiatives: http://www.nursingsociety.org/GlobalConnect/Initiatives/Pages/building_global.aspx
• International Nursing Research Collaboration Guidelines: http://www.nursingsociety.org/Research/Pages/guidelines_ICR.aspx