Since becoming CEO of the American Academy of Nursing, I have been inspired by the nurses and other health care providers that have seen health care challenges in their communities and created cost-effective solutions that improve health outcomes.

For example, under the direction of Margaret Grey, DrPH, RN, FAAN, nurses associated with the Yale School of Nursing have provided coping skills training to youths and their families suffering from type 1 diabetes and at risk for type 2 diabetes for more than 12 years.

Or take for example, the Eleventh Street Family Health Services, which serves families who live in public housing developments in the Philadelphia area. Fifty-seven percent of patients are covered by Medicaid and 33 percent are uninsured.

Or in Kentucky, Kay Roberts, EdD, MSN, FAAN offers weekly hypertension management clinics and classes for self management of chronic illness. Since opening its doors in 2003, the clinic has prevented unnecessary hospitalization in approximately 25 percent of its clients with chronic illness and reduced the cost of primary care by more than 50 percent for each client.

Americans are known for their creative and innovative spirit, and as policymakers reform our health care system, they should closely examine what is being done by various health care providers across this country. When they see models that work policymakers should examine why they are successful and encourage the implementation of these models in communities facing similar problems.

True health care reform has already been set in motion by nurses and other health care providers on the ground and in the field working tirelessly to help Americans stay healthy. It is now time to scale up and spread these initiatives.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Health Professions, Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.