By Rebecca Madden
Watertown Daily Times
The future of nursing is already here.
Utilizing registered nurses to their fullest educational potential to provide primary care for communities is a movement led by Patricia Gerrity, associate dean for community programs at Drexel University's College of Nursing and Health Professions.
A member of the "Future of Nursing: Blueprint for health care reform" panel at Health Journalism 2011, Gerrity shared her story of how the new Eleventh Street Family Health Center goes beyond traditional primary care. [See Gerrity's presentation.]
"What we wanted to provide was access," she said. "People need access to quality care that's affordable. We did away with appointments; we went to open access and it works."
The center is run by family nurse practitioners, behavioral health consultants, clinical nurses, social workers, nurse midwives, physical therapists, health educators/nutritionists, dentists, podiatrists, integrative practitioners, creative arts therapists, registered nurse care managers and attorneys.
Panel members agreed that nurse-led models of health care will help solve the primary care shortage many communities face. But at the other end of the perfect plan is a shortage of nursing professors which could put that in jeopardy.
That has become complicated by a looming nursing shortage, combined with a lack of nurses entering doctorate programs to becoming nursing professors, according to panel member Susan Hassmiller, a registered nurse and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation senior adviser for nursing.
"We're concerned about all nurses practicing to the top of their educational training," she said.
More nursing educators will lead to more nurses being able to provide services in the community, which means more nurses could be involved in reforming the health-care system and setting more examples such as the Eleventh Street Family Health Center.
"We really need all of the players at the table," Hassmiller said. "We really need to get this on everyone's agenda. We can only do so much at the national level."
