Have you noticed how the pace of change relentlessly accelerates as the winds of transformation sweep across the health care landscape? Implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and digitally driven transformations in our workplace are overwhelming in both volume and intensity. The temptation for the leader is to try to go with the flow just to keep our collective heads above water. Our struggle to survive saps our energy and hampers our ability to anticipate, prepare, and thoughtfully plan for what's coming next.
While it may feel otherwise, the truth is the amount of time in our day hasn't diminished. However, as our devices bombard us faster and faster with more information than we can process, it's become harder to see what's emerging and valuable on the collective leadership horizon in health care. To cope, leaders must include surrender and detachment in their skill set as they challenge caregivers to reconceptualize care with new models and approaches that seek to transform the work environment. The need to let go and leave some things behind is probably equally important.
Today's leaders must improve their ability to scan the health service environment to anticipate how to meet the demands of a new health care world. That world will include a community-centered, early-engagement, population-based primary care frame for providing health services going forward. It will alter how nurses are prepared, how they are used, the kind of partnerships that are formed, and innovative clinical applications that advance the future of health in America. Clearly, today's leaders must write a new script that will serve as the foundation of an agenda for health service for the foreseeable future.
The authors in this issue describe the intentional work being conducted across a variety of settings to transform health service delivery. Their articles elucidate the diversity of opportunities and approaches in health care today. They illustrate the challenges and opportunities that create the conditions for sustainable change. This issue begins Nursing Administration Quarterly's 40th anniversary year with new insights and approaches that can inform and excite nursing leaders with hope and purpose as we work together to create a truly effective health system for the future.
-Tim Porter-O'Grady, DM, EdD, ScD(h), APRN, FAAN, FACCWS
Senior Partner, Health Systems
Tim Porter-O'Grady Associates, Inc
Atlanta, Georgia
-Donna Gage, PhD, RN, NE-BC
Chief Nursing Officer
Veterans Health Administration
Washington, District of Columbia