Demonstrating the value of clinical nurse specialists in acute and critical care

摘要

The idea for the symposium in this issue of AACN Advanced Critical Care came to me at the National Teaching Institute in Denver, Colorado, May 2014. A colleague, Roberta Fruth, a senior consultant with JCR Consulting, and I were discussing the challenges of the current health care environment. In her role, Dr Fruth consults with health care institutions on how they can create high-reliability organizations and improve patient safety. Dr Fruth commented that the complexity of today's patient populations, the financial pressures of organizations, and the demands of the regulatory environment present overwhelming challenges to frontline staff. Her comment to me was that organizations need the expertise of clinical nurse specialists (CNSs)-to provide leadership in clinical expertise, quality improvement efforts to optimize patient outcomes, and professional advancement of the nursing staff-but the contributions of CNSs are not well recognized. As a CNS myself, of course I totally agreed!