American Organization for Nursing Leadership Nurse Leader Core Competencies: A Framework Reaching Across the Continuum and Leadership Levels.

Leadership competencies represent the knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with effective leadership. This fall, the American Organization for Nursing Leadership published its core nursing leadership competencies that are intended to be measurable and translatable across the care continuum and throughout all levels of nursing leadership. In this column, the authors discuss these updated competencies and the relevance to practice, academia, and industry.

Offering Support and Staying Inspired: An Interview With Maureen Swick.

This year, Maureen Swick, PhD, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, received the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors an AONL member recognized by the nursing community as a significant leader in the nursing profession who has served AONL in an important leadership capacity. Swick served as chair of the AONL Board of Directors and AONL CEO/American Hospital Association chief nursing officer. She has held executive leadership roles at several health systems and now is enterprise senior vice president of nursing and pharmacy at Atrium Health, Charlotte, North Carolina. This is an abridged version of an interview conducted by AONL CEO Robyn Begley, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, at the AONL annual conference in San Antonio in April 2022. Dr Swick also responded to questions from the audience.

AONL Foundation Innovates to Bridge Science and Practice.

In this column, leaders from AONL discuss the AONL Foundation and its charitable mission of providing resources that create opportunities to bridge science and practice to shape the future of nursing.

"We want what's best for patients." nurse leaders' attitudes about medical cannabis: A qualitative study.

Background: The majority of states have legalized medical cannabis. Nurse leaders must be prepared for an increase in patients' use of the drug across all care settings. Objectives: To explore nurse leaders' attitudes towards, knowledge of, and experiences with medical cannabis. Design: : Descriptive qualitative study design. Participants: 28 nurse leaders-19 in four focus groups of 3-7 participants and another 9 in interviews. Methods: Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews and focus groups of nurse leaders about their attitudes towards and experiences with patients' use of medical cannabis. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes and subthemes. Results: Four major themes were identified: overwhelming support for legalized medical cannabis; importance of overcoming the stereotype of a gateway drug; problematic mismatch between federal and state cannabis policies; and nursing needs to be move involved. Conclusions: There was strong support for legalized medical cannabis to meet patients' needs; yet, respondents reported little discussion about or education regarding medical cannabis among nurses. Inconsistent federal and state cannabis policies were viewed as especially problematic and in need of alignment.

AONL Foundation Looks to the Future: New Identity, New Mission, New Vision, New Strategic Goals.

During the 1st half of 2019 the AONL Foundation for Nursing Leadership Research and Education underwent an identity and brand change and adopted a new strategic plan, complete with a new mission and vision, to guide the foundation's work forward toward creating a sustainable research for nursing leadership research and education. This article describes the strategic planning activities and process the AONL Foundation recently undertook and highlights future goals.

AONE Foundation Embarks on New Initiatives.

The AONE Foundation for Nursing Leadership Research and Education has created new grant opportunities and last year funded research projects that will directly assist nurse leaders. This article outlines the foundation's direction and priorities going forward.