There was enough interest in the topic that Sigma set up a webinar titled Engaging With Politics, Policy, and Policymaking. Sigma facilitated a brief online discussion. In June 2022, I responded to a post on The Circle, Sigma’s online member community, from Enrique Castro-Sanchez asking if any nurses were interested in public policy related to healthcare. Nurse policy entrepreneurship has been exemplified by the work of nurses like Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton who acted after seeing unmet needs. and Mahatma Gandhi as they influenced social policies of entire countries. Expand that thought to policy entrepreneurship and you include Martin Luther King Jr. The notion of entrepreneurship is not a new idea and has been well received in the US because of people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. This stuck in my mind as a perfect depiction of how the power of the nursing profession can be applied to nudge the current form of healthcare towards something we can all be proud of. Considering there are over 5 million RNs in the US, statistically, there are close to zero nurses engaged in policy making.Ī few years ago, I read a thought-provoking article that described this role as a nurse policy entrepreneur. As a novice nurse struggling to learn the craft, I simultaneously began contemplating one of the report’s recommendations that, “Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health professionals, in redesigning healthcare in the United States.” Activating this recommendation has been marginal at best with the Nurses on Boards Coalition reporting more than 10,000 nurses have stated being on a board of directors. I read the Institute of Medicine’s report: The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. I worked in adolescent and adult psychiatric-mental health and correctional settings in various vocational roles for over 30 years before becoming a registered nurse in 2010. Overall, the healthcare system lacks the perspective and input from nurses. There is a knowledge deficit among society that rests squarely on an incomplete understanding of the profession, in part because nurses themselves may not consider themselves policymakers or thought leaders. The future of the profession lies in part with raising awareness of nursing as unique and distinct from other professions and becoming a valued partner with other disciplines and actors in shaping and implementing healthcare policy. To evolve the healthcare system to its fullest capacity, the nursing profession must advance beyond a vocational role.
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