Current supply and demand projections for regis-tered nurses (RNs) in the United States paint a pic-ture with many gaps. Efforts have been directed toincreasing the supply of nurses through increasingenrollments and increasing the number of newgraduate nurses. Challenges, such as facultyshortages, exacerbate the problem, hamperingthe hard work that has been directed at increasingthe number of students so that the subsequentsupply of nurses is increased. The other half ofthe equation is improving the retention rate ofnurses, especially in hospitals across the country.The nurse leader is required to pay attention to thework environment and improve the ability ofnurses to provide care. This has become more ofan imperative for this generation's nursing leadersto impact and improve nursing retention.Nursing care in hospitals requires a frameworkof a professional nursing practice model, whichis necessary as a foundation for care delivery.The professional nursing practice model needs toinclude a philosophy of nursing care and be basedon a theory of practice that resonates with all of thenurses in the practice site. The nurses executive,working in partnership with the clinicians at thebedside, have a privileged opportunity to give sub-stantive meaning to the philosophy of nursing andmission statement regarding the caring nature ofnursing. "A well developed nursing conceptualframework that explicitly grounds nursing serviceand communicates the uniqueness of nursing aswell as its connection to the other sectors of thehealth care system is the foundation for successfulintegration of theory into practice"1 This articleshares the results of a multiyear Health Resourcesand Services Administration (HRSA)-funded grantaimed at reducing work intensity for hospitalnurses and creating a human caring environmentin the acute care workplace.