The Future Od Nursing Leading Change, Advancing He Essay

THE FUTURE OF NURSING: LEADING CHANGE, ADVANCING HEALTH
CHRISTINE CLERIZIER
Grand Canyon University: NRS-430V Professional Dynamics
March 23, 2012
 

The nursing profession is the largest segment of the health care workforce (IOM, 2010).
There is currently more than 3 million nurses in the United States alone. It is by this reasoning
and the fact that nurses often has the most patient contact that they should play a pivotal role
in the overhauling and transformation of healthcare in this country.
Very little has changed since 1965 when the Medicare and Medicaid programs were
created. That is until 2010, when the government reformed the medical system by singing in to
law the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
The Act was in response to several critical issues that affected barriers that nurses faced
in their practice. The healthcare settings in this country has been forever evolving, but nursing
seemed to be still stuck in the ways of old. But, in reality these barriers needed to be removed if
the system was going to be truly effective.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the IOM saw the need to address
these critical issues. In 2008 they started a two-year initiative to figure out ways of achieving
those goals. The Committee on the RWJF Initiative on the Future of Nursing was appointed. Its
primary focus was to come up with an agenda that would lay out the means by which changes
in the nursing profession would come about.
From that report the committee created four important strategies that would be
beneficial and fruitful in advancing the nursing field today and the coming future.
The Committee address the shortfall of nurses not practicing to the full extent of their
education and training. They determined it was not in the best interest of the profession and
should be discontinued. All nurses, if trained to do so and has the educational background
should practice to their full capabilities.
The report goes on...