NEWS ARCHIVES

NURSING DIMENSIONS

NURSES' ALUMNI ORGANIZATION NEWSLETTER

The Time for Reform is Now! Dean Katharyn May (right) talks with Trenell Darby, a fall 2008 admittee to the UW-Madison baccalaureate nursing program. If you attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing’s 2008 Littlefield Leadership Lecture this past September, you heard three nurse leaders in the areas of nursing policy and research describe pressing issues surrounding today’s health care system. While our speakers—American Nurses’ Association (ANA) President Rebecca Patton, MSN, RN, and nursing faculty Susan Heidrich, PhD, RN, and Susan Zahner, DrPH, RN—approach health care reform from different perspectives, they share similar concerns about the current state of affairs. The facts are these. The U.S. health care system is in a state of crisis. Costs continue to rise astronomically, the public health workforce will soon be unable to keep up with growing demands, and a staggering fifty million Americans do not have health insurance while another twenty-five million are underinsured. And there has been far too much rhetoric and far too little action. I stand with my colleagues—these are vital concerns. I believe that access to necessary health care must be seen as a human right, not a luxury. I support the ANA position that all persons are entitled to ready access to quality and affordable health care services offered by an adequately sized and well-educated workforce. And we all know what that means. Quality health care is safe, effective, and timely care that meets patients’ needs and delivers appropriate and proven interventions. It is equitable, acknowledging but not discriminating on the basis of important factors such as culture, gender, and socioeconomic status. It is also patient-centered, ensuring that care is culturally appropriate, respectful of patients and their families, and actively involves consumers in managing their own health. Access means that care is affordable and available to all who require services and that services are delivered in ways that reflect the realities of today, not outmoded patterns from the past. The cost of health care is indeed a complex issue. But it’s time for a shift in thinking. We must redirect the system away from overusing expensive, acute-care, hospital-based services and toward more community-based, preventive care. Also, we must use our heads about the economics of care across a continuum of patient care settings. By investing resources in nursing education emphasizing prevention, health promotion, and responsibility for evaluating outcomes, we can provide better care and ensure better quality of life for patients while reducing costs. Finally, the workforce—recruiting, educating, and retaining it—will be key to system reform. Current estimates predict a shortage of one million nurses by 2020. This shortage will affect every aspect of patient care. While we must do all we can to mitigate the effects of this shortage, let’s be clear about how we got here. The U.S. government spends fifty times ($8 billion yearly vs. $156 million) more on medical than on nursing education. We cannot prepare nurses for tomorrow if we don’t have the financial support for teachers and adequate teaching facilities today. The time to reform the system is now. Working together—providers, consumers, policy makers, and industry leaders—we can build an affordable health care system for everybody.