Nurses are at the forefront of an evolutionary wave in health care. Whether we take leadership or not will determine nursing’s future.These ten trends can revitalize nursing if nurses break free from the confines of the medical model and use their education and skills to become wave riders.1. Aging Boomers
Boomers are living longer. Quantity of life is driving a desire for better quality of life. This generation wants to learn how to stay vital, mobile, healthy and productive. They are looking for guidance in health promotion and wellness, not only disease prevention and treatment.2. A 2nd Boom
Boomers Grandchildren are driving a huge demand for family health information and support for new and working moms. From birthing to family health education and sick child care, family systems need and want professional advice and innovative strategies to raise a brighter, stronger next generation.3. Information explosion
Internet access provides health consumers with tons of information, but not the knowledge or wisdom to know how to use it without getting confused. They need knowledgeable health professionals as gatekeepers, trusted advisors, or health system navigators.4. Holism
People are increasingly spending out of pocket dollars for alternative and complementary health care. Nursing education focuses on systems, whole person, life cycle perspectives that can guide in selecting appropriate options along a continuum of care.5. Consumer driven health care
As consumers rely less on employer health coverage and more on personal health spending, they are seeking innovative and home based solutions for care including advanced home monitoring, telephone consultation, personalized care, and individualized treatment.6. High Tech – High Touch
The need for personal connection, listening, and caring has never been higher. Nurses consistently rank first in every consumer poll for most trusted professional.7. Shortages and Cost Containment
Professional shortages and a drive to contain costs, creates a push to use mid-level and low-level providers for technical care. Nurses will continue to be driven away from the institutional bed side. With decreasing numbers of people in institutional care, face to face professional health care will be delivered in the home and community.8. Accessibility
Health information and care will be delivered on a global, mobile, remote, phone and internet basis. Nursing phone advice lines are increasingly popular with consumers.9. Back to Basics
With increased interest in information and coaching on proper food and nutrition, supplements, stretching, meditation, simplicity, life balance, joy in work, and relationships wellness and health coaching is a growing field.10. Self-Care/Self-Responsibility
People are realizing that doctors, medication and illness care are not going to keep them well. Employers, third party payers and common sense are driving consumers to take health care into their own hands. This trend will continue to drive an increase in self care information and reduction in in-patient and long term care.Tomorrow’s nurses are not working under a doctor’s direction, or in an institution. To remain viable, nursing will have to think beyond the institutional medical care box.Consumers are desperate for professional nurses to fill the need for proactive community
and home based health care.Tomorrow’s nurses will be innovative community health leaders, who develop and deliver services directly meeting the changing needs of health consumers.Progressive, professional nurses will form cooperatives, and creative health delivery systems that support families throughout the life span. They will provide continuity of health information and care while supporting people to navigate an ever more specialized and complex techno-medical system.Grab A Board – Surfs Up!© Aila Accad, RN
The Health Care Evolution – Ten Trends That Can Revitalize Nursing
Increasing Personal Productivity
When it comes to achieving your goals, one of the best things you can do is to increase your personal productivity. People who get more done in a day aren’t exactly smarter than everyone else, they just know what to focus their limited amount of time on and cut down on things that waste their time. These people are simply just more efficient. When you become more efficient, you will produce more and that in turn will allow you to achieve more.There are lots of ways to improve personal productivity like having a list, prioritizing it, and checking the tasks off as you complete them. Here are some other things you can try as well.Schedule a set amount of time during the day to work on your most important task. Many times, the thing that we have to do most is the thing that we least want to do. In order to ensure that we get it done and not procrastinate on doing it will be to set a specific time where you will do nothing but that task. Typically, you want to set a time in the morning. After lunch, as you know, can be a tiring time to work on anything important.When you are actually working on this task, you want to make sure you get rid of all disturbances. That means, put your cellphone on silent, let your phone calls go to voice mail, and inform everyone around you to not interrupt. By doing this, you will have a solid hour or 2 of focus time. This will allow you to finish what you need to do efficiently because you won’t get side tracked or lose focus. With other tasks that are of less importance and don’t require much concentration, you can tackle that while doing other small tasks at the same time.Increasing productivity isn’t exactly rocket science but it does take a little bit of experimenting. Some things will just work better for you than others. For some, having this focus time won’t work since they need interaction and movement to get things done. What you want to do is measure your results in order to find out what’s working or not. You can do this by simply keeping time of how long it takes you to do certain tasks. When you find one way of doing it helps you get it done faster, stick with that strategy.
The Health Care Evolution – Ten Trends That Can Revitalize Nursing
Nurses are at the forefront of an evolutionary wave in health care. Whether we take leadership or not will determine nursing’s future.These ten trends can revitalize nursing if nurses break free from the confines of the medical model and use their education and skills to become wave riders.1. Aging Boomers
Boomers are living longer. Quantity of life is driving a desire for better quality of life. This generation wants to learn how to stay vital, mobile, healthy and productive. They are looking for guidance in health promotion and wellness, not only disease prevention and treatment.2. A 2nd Boom
Boomers Grandchildren are driving a huge demand for family health information and support for new and working moms. From birthing to family health education and sick child care, family systems need and want professional advice and innovative strategies to raise a brighter, stronger next generation.3. Information explosion
Internet access provides health consumers with tons of information, but not the knowledge or wisdom to know how to use it without getting confused. They need knowledgeable health professionals as gatekeepers, trusted advisors, or health system navigators.4. Holism
People are increasingly spending out of pocket dollars for alternative and complementary health care. Nursing education focuses on systems, whole person, life cycle perspectives that can guide in selecting appropriate options along a continuum of care.5. Consumer driven health care
As consumers rely less on employer health coverage and more on personal health spending, they are seeking innovative and home based solutions for care including advanced home monitoring, telephone consultation, personalized care, and individualized treatment.6. High Tech – High Touch
The need for personal connection, listening, and caring has never been higher. Nurses consistently rank first in every consumer poll for most trusted professional.7. Shortages and Cost Containment
Professional shortages and a drive to contain costs, creates a push to use mid-level and low-level providers for technical care. Nurses will continue to be driven away from the institutional bed side. With decreasing numbers of people in institutional care, face to face professional health care will be delivered in the home and community.8. Accessibility
Health information and care will be delivered on a global, mobile, remote, phone and internet basis. Nursing phone advice lines are increasingly popular with consumers.9. Back to Basics
With increased interest in information and coaching on proper food and nutrition, supplements, stretching, meditation, simplicity, life balance, joy in work, and relationships wellness and health coaching is a growing field.10. Self-Care/Self-Responsibility
People are realizing that doctors, medication and illness care are not going to keep them well. Employers, third party payers and common sense are driving consumers to take health care into their own hands. This trend will continue to drive an increase in self care information and reduction in in-patient and long term care.Tomorrow’s nurses are not working under a doctor’s direction, or in an institution. To remain viable, nursing will have to think beyond the institutional medical care box.Consumers are desperate for professional nurses to fill the need for proactive community
and home based health care.Tomorrow’s nurses will be innovative community health leaders, who develop and deliver services directly meeting the changing needs of health consumers.Progressive, professional nurses will form cooperatives, and creative health delivery systems that support families throughout the life span. They will provide continuity of health information and care while supporting people to navigate an ever more specialized and complex techno-medical system.Grab A Board – Surfs Up!© Aila Accad, RN