Leveraging the Expertise of America’s Most Trusted Profession

The following post was first published in Huffington Post’s Politics Blog on December 29, 2015.
During a time when Americans’ confidence in many U.S. institutions has declined, the public’s trust in nurses remains unmatched.
For the 14th year in a row, the public rated nursing as the most honest and ethical profession in America, with an 85 percent rating, according to a recently released Gallup survey. Nurses have claimed the top spot since 1999, the first year they were included in the survey, with the exception of 2001, when firefighters were voted No. 1 following the attacks on September 11.
While the U.S. health care system struggles to retain the public’s confidence, with only 37 percent of respondents saying they have a “great deal” or a “quite a lot” of confidence in the system according to findings from a June 2015 Gallup poll, the evidence is clear that nurses have the respect of Americans. As lawmakers and other policymakers work to enable better quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of health care, the actions of nurses have resulted in reduced hospital-acquired infections and falls. To ensure that progress continues, it is imperative that nurses, who are caregivers, administrators, innovators and policymakers, occupy more prominent roles in the discussion and in leading change.
The Gallup survey paints a positive portrait of how nurses are perceived compared to other professions. For example, the public gave a 56 p...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - January 5, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Choice Consumer Health Care Health Professions Nurses Source Type: blogs