From the school's federally-supported health clinic at a Springfield high school to recent efforts in Ghana, Nursing faculty and students are key players in healthcare matters, Breslin said. The wave is just beginning to hit once again. Nurses have to be thinkers today. You need your heart and you need your head. In the future, nurses will not only work in hospitals, she said, but they'll provide more coordination of care and serve as managers of health information.
Nurses can help people sort out and understand it.
Breslin said nurses will likely be relied on more and more to provide direct care to under-served groups, while others will be trained to work in interdisciplinary teams to manage health care. As the needs for nurses grows, so too is the demand for nursing faculty, she said. Nationally, the average age of assistant professors of nursing is 49, according to Breslin. We need to pay attention to this, she added. We need to entice young nurses to pursue academic careers.