Nursing leaders design action agenda for 1996
Faced with unprecedented challenges and opportunities stemming from the rapid transformation of the health care system, leaders from the American Nurses Association and from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses held a recent summit to identify three priorities for the profession. The summit was designed to help carry the nursing profession into the 21st century by shaping a vision for the future, developing an action agenda, and issuing a call for support and collaboration to bring the profession together.
The leaders identified the following issues to help focus their plan of action:
* Professional identity: Nurses need to identify and showcase their unique and indispensable contributions in achieving the best patient care and outcomes, and to encourage other nurses to deepen their commitment to the profession. Strategies to accomplish this goal will focus on recognizing and rewarding nurses' unique "value added" contributions to innovations and best clinical practices that focus on diverse patient populations.
Education: New nursing graduates must be prepared for the rapid changes in the health care environment and experienced nurses must maintain and update their knowledge, skills, and professional abilities. Strategies will focus on national collaborative initiatives to help nurses meet the challenges of a changing health care system, changing patient needs, and taking advantage of new career opportunities, including those in home- and community-based care.
Corporatization: The profession must address how today's health care system, increasingly driven by corporate, bottom-line interests, affects patient care. Strategies will include forming action networks to mobilize nursing leaders to respond to imminent issues, giving visibility to provider groups whose systems enhance patient and family care, and launching a regional and state educational initiative for health care purchasers and payers. *
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