Next great evolution in nursing
BRONX - This week marks the start of National Nurses Week, a date that was selected in honor of Florence Nightingale, a British nurse whose experiences during the Crimean War significantly advanced the quality and standards of nursing care. As we acknowledge this week, we not only celebrate our past and present nursing heroes, but also take delight in what is emerging as the next great evolution in nursing – formalized and academic-based nursing research careers. Nurse researchers are nurses that ask questions about health and illness to enhance the delivery of care over a person’s lifespan. We ask scientific questions about how we deliver care and how that impacts outcomes. We ask questions about how best to screen for diseases and why diseases impact people differently. We also look at healthcare inequities to identify how we can reduce obstacles that may be impeding optimal care delivery. These questions and quality improvement efforts are enhancing drug discovery, identifyi