"The United States is in the midst of a nursing shortage that is projected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care grows," reports the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The US Department of Labor projects a shortage of 450,000 nurses in this country in just seven years. Currently, about 75 percent of all hospital personnel vacancies are for nurses and the country is experiencing a steady decline in nursing school enrollments each year.

Aliron recognizes the vital role educational programs play in maintaining top-quality, health care staffing standards. As part of its international education efforts to stem the global shortage of registered nurses, Aliron International is joining forces with several public health and medical teaching institutions around the United States. The goal: to provide expertise and teaching assistance to foreign nations in setting up public health education facilities. "We're serving as facilitators, attempting to put the University's experts together with leaders of countries that want to improve their medical education systems," says Ron Grow, executive vice president of Aliron.

Though Aliron is still exploring the feasibility of this approach, the plan is to train and certify prospective nurses from other countries while they still live abroad, but under the supervision of a US-based university. That would enable these new nurses to move to this country educated and accredited in the American health care system. They would be fully prepared to go to work here.