Nursing in America is changing. Bigtime.
While the healthcare industry is simultaneously coping with the aging-patient “silver tsunami,” increasingly complex insurance procedures and loopholes, and implementation of healthcare reform, one thing is clear: healthcare is facing unprecedented challenges, and nurses must play a major role in meeting them.
In a new report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examine what it’s going to take – from nurses, hospitals, administrators, government, and other members of the healthcare team – to satisfy future demands for care. Chaired by Donna Shalala, the former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (see page 3), the report committee offers specific recommendations for the future of the nursing profession.
At Johns Hopkins, Dean Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, thought “it would be valuable to look at the report recommendations and ask: How do we measure up? What is special about academic health centers in general and about Hopkins in particular? And, what might we do as a step forward?” She invited an interdisciplinary group of university and hospital leaders to do just that.
