Authors urge nurses to move from trusted to influential

The American Academy of Nursing's Building Healthcare Systems Excellence expert panel held an invitational meeting earlier this year to identify a strategy to move nursing from the most trusted to most influential profession. Senior leaders in nursing organizations, health care systems and academic institutions discussed ways to extend nursing’s influence across policy, research, education, practice, theory, media and industry. The group proposed to advance nursing’s influence by issuing a Grand Challenge, a collective effort that aligns individuals and organizations to achieve a transformative societal goal. Describing their approach in the September issue of the Journal of Nursing Administration, the authors write, “There is not a prescription to solve this image and impact issue; the most important thing is to believe, contribute, and share.” The authors list a number of actions readers can take to increase nurses’ influence and invite readers to take part in an online conversation with Academy panel members on LinkedIn.