Other forces that affect the quality of future nursing care, according to Dickson, include the working environment, salaries, the evolution of managed care, charity care, Medicare, Medicaid, and technology improvements. This should lead to better trained nurses and satisfy the demands of hospital administrators for statewide nursing standards, Dickson said. While there has been an increase in demand for nurses, there has also been a decrease in nursing-school graduation rates. The CIC project is also surveying the public on nursing care, asking what they expect from nurses and how nursing care affected a recent healthcare experience. Now we're talking about how to better recruit, educate, and retain nurses.
Nurses are on the frontline in healthcare.