So, do you ever stop thinking beyond the immediate issues on your unit or hospital? Do you ever think about where we're going as a profession? Do you ever think about what YOU need to do to help our profession grow? Well, HealthLeaders Media published the top five nursing issues for 2015.1 I'm hoping that these five issues: ethics, nurses in the boardroom, building a culture of health, growing momentum for nurse education, and more interdisciplinary collaboration, give you direction on how you can impact our profession.
Ethics: The American Nurses Association released a revised Code of Ethics consisting of nine provisions and interpretive statements.2 The Code of Ethics provides a succinct statement of the ethical values, obligations, and duties of every individual who enters the nursing profession. The Code of Ethics serves as the profession's nonnegotiable ethical standard. The Code of Ethics expresses the nursing profession's understanding of its commitment to society. Additionally, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics published A blueprint for 21st century nursing ethics: report of the national nursing summit.3
Nurses in the boardroom: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is leading the Nurses on Boards Coalition,4 which comprises 21 national nursing associations to get 10,000 nurses on a corporate and nonprofit health-related board of directors by 2020. Nurses provide valuable input on accessible, cost-effective, and safe patient care.
Building a culture of health: according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report Shorter lives, poorer health, the United States ranked last or near last when compared with other affluent nations on nine health indicators including infant mortality and low birth weight, obesity and diabetes, heart disease, and chronic lung disease.5
Growing momentum for nurse education: The business case to support the IOM's goal of having at least 80% of the nursing workforce hold a bachelor's degree by 2020 is strong. We must also keep in view the goal to increase other advanced nursing degrees.6
More interdisciplinary collaboration: Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential to providing safe quality care.
Until the next time: be healthy, be happy, be great advocates for your patients, and get out there and impact our profession.
AnneMarie Palatnik, MSN, APN, ACNS-BC
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