Posted: March 12th, 2024

Evolution of Nursing Practice: Key Leaders and Historical Events

Evolution of Nursing Practice: Key Leaders and Historical Events
1. Introduction
An introduction to an academic essay provides the essence and background information needed for the reader to understand the research as well as the research topics. The introduction in the essay is initiated by the context of what a nurse is and how a nursing profession came into existence and its origin. It focuses on all areas of nursing, including the clinical nurse specialist, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners. The field of advanced practice registered nursing is recognized separately in the essay, providing an insight into the roles of each of the areas of nursing as well, which include providing healthcare to patients, teaching nursing, and conducting research. The introduction tends to focus on the evolution of nursing in different aspects over a period of time till today’s modern technology is being used for healthcare services. Nurses have faced a lot of challenges since the profession had come into existence, most noticeably including the establishment of the first nurse training schools which took place in London, 1860. It was very difficult for the first one to be set up and pass by a parliament, Nightingale School for Nurses. Florence Nightingale and Ethel Gordon Fenwick helped to set up the first nurse’s registration act, 1919. The essay later revisits those historical periods by providing relevant historical events in each period and also how those key leaders have influenced the profession of nursing and the nurses at that time. By the completion of providing all the relevant data, historical periods, and key nurses and how they have influenced the nursing profession, the reader gets to understand how different nursing roles have evolved from a traditional role of working at the clinic to the expanded role of being able to provide surgical and medical diagnosed interventions. The different bodies and types of knowledge in nursing are presented throughout the unpacking of the essay, for instance scientific knowledge has to be rational and coherent, using both reason and knowledge in the exploration and sorting of truth.
1.1 Background and Significance
The essay explores the evolution of nursing practice, with a particular focus on key leaders and historical events that have shaped the profession. Throughout history, nursing has been influenced by the work of a select group of visionary and dedicated individuals. These individuals have contributed to the development of the practice and philosophy of nursing in a variety of ways. The essay focuses on these key leaders, examining their impact in the context of the broader historical and social landscape in which they lived and worked. The essay also aims to provide a more in-depth understanding of the complex and dynamic nature of nursing practice. By charting the growth and development of the profession, it is possible to identify the many different factors that have combined to make nursing what it is today. This information is important for developing an appreciation of the professional status of nursing in contemporary society, and also for making sense of the myriad issues that regularly confront and challenge the profession. The essay will examine the development of nursing in the United States, in the belief that the historical evolution and context of American nursing will be of particular interest to the readership. In addition to discussing the work of significant historical individuals, the essay will also explore broader historical themes and developments, in an attempt to situate the leaders in a meaningful historical context. For example, the essay will also address how changing ideas about gender and the role of women in society have influenced the development of nursing as a profession over time. I hope that this research essay will contribute to a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the historical development of nursing, and its enduring legacy in shaping modern healthcare provision. By examining the impact of key historical leaders, the essay aims to shed light on what the historical development of nursing can teach us about the profession today.
1.2 Purpose of the Research Essay
In the essay’s introduction, I will describe the factors contributing to the development of a new approach to the assessment and initial care provision of patients with minor injuries in the UK. One of the major goals of this overview is to identify the notable gaps in nursing education and explore Middlesex University’s competences framework in relation to current nursing standards, such as the 6Cs: care, courage, communication, competence, and commitment. The work aims to provide a detailed definition of what a minor injury is and describe its place within contemporary healthcare provision. This will be achieved by not only describing the general definitions and etiology of minor injuries but also by providing relevant statistical data and insights into the social significance of this health problem. Also, since the course is based within the context of the modern healthcare landscape of the United Kingdom, it is important to outline the continual growth of this area within different types of healthcare sectors, such as Accident and Emergency Departments, Walk-in Centres, and GP Practices, through explaining the role of minor injury practice and services in the provision of healthcare and well-being of the local neighborhood or community. I will attempt to explore some of the difficulties and limitations of the current system and relate this to the patient-nurse relationship in a philosophy of practice and how these issues can be addressed through more knowledge concerning innovative practice and the embracing of new healthcare technologies and techniques.
2. Early Influences on Nursing Practice
The Crimean War and its influence on nursing practice will forever be linked to Florence Nightingale. Nightingale’s experiences in the war served to crystallize her beliefs and formed the foundation for her subsequent work in nurse education. In 1854, when the war began, Nightingale was literally “the only person in England who knew how to organize a district nursing system.” His primary areas of work were in hospital reforms, public health, and nurse education in the workhouse infirmaries and the separate system of the Poor Law hospitals. However, it was the events of the Crimean War that were to elevate her to national hero status. The Crimean War is best remembered in nursing history for its influence on the development of the profession of nursing. It is generally considered to mark the beginning of the modern era of nursing. This was the first war to be documented in newspapers, submitted to the photographic image, and shown in the media of the day. The nurses who went out to the war were preferably Protestant, sober, and middle-aged. This was due to the restrictions of the Victorian social mores and the need for the government to find advantages for women leaving their place in the home. Nightingale went on to develop her model of nursing. This had a much greater emphasis on the quality of nursing care and the evidence base for it. She began the work of developing a coherent nursing philosophy, based on a respect for patients’ individual experience and the application of “environmental nursing.” This entailed maintaining a still, quiet atmosphere while having nurses enforce strict cleanliness and order. She came to believe that nursing care involves placing the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him. Her writing and the work she undertook live on today, and she remains one of the most recognized names in nursing around the globe. Her dedicated work, which is acknowledged as contributing to the establishment of the modern nursing training, worship the home, and her strong belief in maintaining patients’ quality of life has ensured that her legacy lives on to inspire and boost future generations of nurses around the world.
2.1 Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War
Florence Nightingale is often considered to be the founder of modern nursing. She was born in 1820 into a wealthy British family and was determined to enter the nursing field from a very young age. During a time when women were confined to their homes for the most part, Florence defied social conventions and decided to travel to Alexandria, Egypt to study nursing. She returned to England in 1851 and took on the role of superintendent at a women’s hospital in London. However, it was her work in the Crimean War that propelled her into fame. The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to February 1856, and it was where Florence and her nurses tended to the wounded and dying soldiers in a facility known as the Scutari Barrack Hospital. The hospital was designed to care for 1,000 men but was swamped with over 2,000 patients. Due to the lack of proper materials and extreme unsanitary conditions, soldiers flooded into the hospital faster than others could leave, and the mortality rate was very high. When Florence and her nurses began their service in the hospital in November 1854, the mortality rate was around 42 percent. However, through her implementation of hand-washing and sanitation procedures in the hospital and the changes that were made as a result, the mortality rate dropped to 2.2 percent by March 1856. This incredible improvement was widely publicized in England and Florence Nightingale became an international name and an icon of humanitarianism and heroism. Her work at Scutari Barrack Hospital not only greatly improved the health and well-being of the soldiers under her care, but also set the stage for significant advancements in nursing methods throughout the following 150 years. Her “Nightingale Method” is still a fundamental model for nursing education and practice today, cementing her legacy as one of the most influential leaders in the history of nursing.
2.2 Clara Barton and the American Civil War
Clara Barton was a contemporary of Florence Nightingale. After tending to the soldiers in her house, she recognized the need for an independent relief organization to help provide medical and other supplies to the troops. In 1861, she alerted her family to her decision to go beyond collecting and distributing supplies for the soldiers from her home in Washington. With the outbreak of the Civil War, she gained permission to travel to the battlefields. Gathering a number of her friends together, one of whom was a woman and the others men, she set out to treat the wounded soldiers. While continuing her work, she distributed letters she had written about the inquiries and needs of the soldiers. These letters drew socially prominent women and required her to direct their responses. This laid the foundation for the organized National Cemetery at Andersonville. As Barton further communicated the needs of the soldiers, she received increasing assistance from people of differing points of view. Later, in 1864, she was appointed by Union General Benjamin Butler to travel with a corps of ambulances. She said of this appointment, “I can hardly tell you how I felt in the matter; it was the first recognition of my work in the field from a commander and my heart can get the curse of the wound since me. From that hour I have never had a doubt as to the successful issue.” This effort developed into the well-known “search for the missing men”, an arduous and painstaking undertaking to identify soldiers who were missing in action during the Civil War. By the end of the war, she had arranged for the marking of 13,000 unmarked graves of Union soldiers in a national cemetery at Andersonville, Georgia. This activity later resulted in what is known as the Office of the Missing Soldier in the War Department. It became necessary to remove the remains buried throughout the Southern States and to concentrate them in the National Cemeteries. In 1982, 87 years after her death, the missing soldier’s office was re-established and combined with the Prisoner of War Office. This combined unit is now called the Office of the Soldier MIA, located in Public Law. As well, Barton’s organization evolved over time and on July 21, 1881, she founded the American National Red Cross, serving as its president for 23 years. The Red Cross was accepted by the nations in conformity with the Treaty of Geneva with the proviso that the organization never engage in nor aid war or armed hostility. Also, Barton established, for the first time in the world, a voluntary relief society, the Red Cross, which successfully executed leadership workers and ambulance attendants for the battlefield. On May 21, 1881, the American Association of the Red Cross was created and Barton was elected president. Through her efforts, Civil War veterans finally received the care, at a Cache Hospital, they so badly needed.
2.3 Impact of World War I on Nursing
During World War I, women in the United States continued to make progress in terms of public work, as many became involved in the nursing profession. The government’s creation of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps and the Student Nurses’ Association was funded and organized in response to the leadership and organization demonstrated by the women. Additionally, technological advancements in the field of medicine placed a greater emphasis on scientific training, which was reflected in the higher educational qualifications required for nursing. Both of these events led to a shift in the training and management of nursing students and signaled a change from traditional to more professional education strategies. From a worldwide perspective, the widespread devastation and destruction of the war made the practical and domestic aspect of nursing more important, as there were many war-derived social and industrial disturbances. However, the influence of wartime nursing experience led to a significant decline in the mortality rates experienced in America in the 1920’s. New drugs and medical treatment had become available, the health education and protection of citizens had improved, and state governments had recognized the importance of a modern and effective public health service. The link between nursing and the government grew stronger, which was illustrated by the passing of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act in 1921, the first piece of federal legislation specifically for maternity and child care.
3. Advancements in Nursing Education
In the early 1800s, nursing schools were a relatively new phenomenon. Although some institutions had offered trainings for nurses, these were not as efficient as they could have been. They were not attaining a high standard of education and were often criticised for a lack of methods by which to adjudicate the ability of the students. Until the hospital schools of nursing were first established, in the late 1800s, nurses had no official hands-on clinical training and lessons were taught by people without formal nursing education. With the rise of multiversity there was an inclination for nursing to move away from hospital-based teaching and into higher education and university settings. Throughout the 20th century, nursing education programmes proliferated – from only 1 Bachelor’s degree in 1930 to over 360 by 1998. Moreover, healthcare’s continuing complexity and the ever-changing environment have necessitated a new nurse to be educated to a high level – either Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees – to ensure patient safety and care quality. Mary Adelaide Nutting was a key figure in the development of nursing as an academic discipline. She was the first nursing professor in the world at the Teacher’s College and she was a leader in creating the institutional base for nursing education. By 1935, every state required the registration of professional nurses and in 1948, with the introduction of the Nurse Practice Act, the authority for nursing education was shifted from hospitals to colleges and universities. The shift towards university education has enabled nurses in clinical practice to take up new roles and to accumulate specialist knowledge from leaders in their fields. And the broadening potential of student placements to areas such as schools, prisons and GP surgeries has allowed a student to develop a wider perspective of care and healthcare services. In turn, the newest education standards set by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing and Education mirror the importance of high-quality education by insisting that more nurse lecturers should now hold higher-level degrees. This indicates that higher nursing education will continue to be an evolving and increasingly important discipline in global healthcare workforces.
3.1 The Establishment of Nursing Schools
Dr. Linda Richards is known as the first trained nurse in the United States and America’s first professionally trained nurse. She was a nursing school and hospital in Boston. Ms. Linda enriched the curriculum, reformed the teaching methods, and introduced graded nursing practices. Her distinguished services in promoting nursing as an honorable profession were recognized by the International Council of Nurses by establishing the “Linda Richards Award”. This prestigious award is given to the nurses for outstanding services and promotion of nursing as a part of the healthcare system. On 13th September 1893, Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Kellogg founded the “New England Hospital for Women and Children” and its School of Nursing. This School of Nursing was one of the earliest nursing instructions in the United States to be established on the plan of giving graduate nurses all the general education, of mind and hand, which they were capable of receiving. This achievement was made possible by the alliance of Mrs. Juliette A. Jewett of the Training School for Nurses, Dr. Susan Dimmock of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, and Ms. Linda Richards of the Training School for Nurses, who became the first superintendent when the hospitals opened, was influential in organizing the curriculum. Because of her international prestige, the course of study permitted her to attract into her training school nurses of more than usual ability and from many foreign countries. In the first annual report of the New England Hospital, the president of the hospital reported the following: “It has been a great satisfaction to know that persons have come from distant parts, on purpose to learn the approved methods and to adopt them in their future practice.” And after the first annual graduation, the trustees and the faculty of the schools reported to Mrs. Marie Mergendahl, the president of the corporation: “We hope that we have been pioneers in a work which will tend to elevate the standard of the great sisterhood of women engaged in nursing the sick and suffering.”
3.2 The Influence of Mary Adelaide Nutting
Following the contributions of Florence Nightingale and her work on establishing nursing as a proper practice, there came the need for more structured education. This is what led to the establishment of the very first nursing schools, beginning with the St. Thomas Hospital in London in 1860. Nursing schools in America would come a little later – the first one, the New England Hospital for Women and Children, was founded in 1872. From there, nursing education would quickly expand in America, which was in large part due to the hard work of Mary Adelaide Nutting. Mary Adelaide Nutting is a key figure in the history of nursing education. In fact, she is often called the ‘Mother of Nursing Education’ in the United States. This title is rightly deserved, as she was involved in a great deal of pioneering work in the improvement of nursing schools and in establishing nursing education as a respected field of study. In 1907, she teamed up with Dr. Isabel Hampton Robb, who was already leading the The Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses. Under Nutting as the school’s second director, they managed to raise the bar significantly on what counted as acceptable nursing education. In other words, she was responsible for professionalizing nursing education. Many of the things that she implemented during her time, such as the curricular reforms and the introduction of education standards, are now taken for granted as integral to any successful nursing program. For example, she better aligned the duration of the training program with modern educational practices, increasing it from a two-year to a three-year course. On top of working at Johns Hopkins, Nutting dedicated much of her career to furthering nursing education and the development of nursing as an academic discipline. She did this through the establishment of the first nursing school within a university at Teachers College, Columbia University, as well as through her written works.
3.3 The Standardization of Nursing Education
Around the turn of the twentieth century, monitors were replaced by graduated, formally trained “nurses” as the standard for both training and practice; or at least this was the goal of the Nursing Reform movement. Advocates of this movement like Isabel Hampton Robb, quality advisors and chief of the new Johns Hopkins University, hoped to modernize the perspective on nursing as a vocation. When she combined the brand-new School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins in 1889, she had the ability to put much of her concepts into actualization. Her vision of a 2 to 3 year “pre-scientific vocational” training program for potential nurses after a college preparatory education as similar as 19th century medicine would permit, determined the structure and material of its curriculum, so that her “concept” became known as the “Nursing Reforms”. However, lots of schools did not willingly comply with these reforms and more notably, the program dropped in disrepute as soon as again due to greedy for-profit training program owners and leaders of low-cost, low- duration programs implemented to enable members new chances using the loophole in the American Nurses Association standardized degree strategies; things ended up becoming so bad that the National League of Nursing Education, the predecessor to the National League for Nursing, in 1912 closed down great lots of the substandard programs and that closure promptly resulted in the only Authority to dictate and accredit nursing education to pass on to the NLNE. Through their control of licensing requirements, the NLNE and its opportunistic directors unquestionably given its president respectively the capacity to clear wages, yet their assistance of one single, monopolistic kind of curriculum would later be questioned effectively with the near restriction of vocationally registered nurses after the office tried to suppress the growth of 4-year university courses. Also, extremely bit exists in the method of direct evidence on the history of nursing education such as durative research studies in each state, or contemporarily kept in depth journal coverage of the conversation will be released. However, we do understand that, by 1923, around 400 various schools of varying programs and curriculums existed and that to the chagrin of advocates of the “Nursing Reforms” particularly throughout the 1930s, the minimal coursework of the still popular and much less DIAC 3″ pre-requisite” programs became supported nevertheless once again through the influence of a national trade organization. By this point, the nature of nursing education ended up becoming a matter of public issue in ethical issues area in an area where mechanically granting the patient’s right to human self-respect and personal option has actually ended up becoming assumed. The standard of practice related to the nursing curriculum ended up becoming absurd with modern medication and these debates reached their highest adoption amongst the socio-politic masses with FND C major standards in 1987, which among the numerous who have the right to citizens’ action and directly mentioned ” a recognized educational organization,” such as a university.
3.4 The Introduction of Advanced Practice Nursing Programs
One of the most celebrated occasions impacting nursing growth in power worldwide is the report of the drill regulatory law in North Carolina in 1903. This began the unfolding of the advanced practice nursing development act in the last part of the 20th century to establish and develop the roles of clinical nurse practitioners. Many folks don’t determine what it is like to get a master’s in medical practice. It is basically using your nursing practice to contribute in public health, clinical exercise, primary care, and in some cases also to be an academic lecturer or faculty in the university. Other nursing leaders retained influential work on lengthening advanced nursing roles. These evolved leaders defined nursing in a different view, such as having the commanding specialty of care given by clinical nurse practitioner. Dr. Loretta Ford and Henry Silver saw that probationers of their program should be adherent in treating an individual, family, and society at large. They also established that clinical experience is very key in the process and the promotion of autonomous nursing routine. Ford and Silver’s hallmark to the sensation of qualified practitioner was the response of the feedback on the nursing curricula. Through articles and public discourse, they revamped the voids in the medical practitioner preparation courses and clarified to the society who a physician’s adjunct is. The physician adjunct and advanced practice nursing in clinical showcased many of the nursing leaders like Clement as indicating the demand for interdisciplinary education and collaboration in tunable healthcare frameworks. By providing instruction to NPs working in authorization of physicians and NPs working in sole determination, the article bestowed perspective on the gist of continually purposing our nursing instruction and practice. For more than a century, nurses have been foundational to the progress of public health through fostering healthier and safe communities and efficacy among individuals and populations in a spotlight for improvement. It has been assumed that, ranging from the early program, national nurse-led remonstration and research grounded practice. And with millions of dollars in support from the trustworthiness positioned on the clinical nurses reaching beyond their long previously undeterminative roles. Through history, nurse leaders have influenced and shaped the manner that nursing is perceived as well as the direction that the profession will accept in the future. But in the modern world, in such a versatile and ever-evolving ground, competent healthcare providers who are committed and empowered in accommodating evidence-based formation in their practice can vastly help the community in constructing a healthier and happier life. Through advanced health assessment, planning, implementation, and assessment for the community and population at large, the medical care would be promoted to a higher dimension in public health, clinical practice, and research work.
4. Evolution of Nursing Roles
The changing roles of nurses across the world have been a key contribution to the healthcare system. In order to establish how the roles of the nursing profession have been changing over time, this essay has chosen Rosalind Franklin as the key leader. She was the founder of the first nurse practitioner education program in 1965 at the University of Colorado (George, 2017). This essay will explore the emergence of nurse practitioners in American healthcare as one of the biggest events in the nursing profession. A section has been dedicated in this essay to discuss the impact of this event on the nursing profession. During the 20th century, American healthcare experienced various structural changes that have continued to influence the roles of nurses. It is during this time that the country shifted its focus from prevention to acute care (Ellis & Hartley, 2012). Therefore, the essay continues to illustrate how the roles of nurses in the healthcare system have been redefined and refocused to adapt to the changing needs of patients, doctors, and the entire healthcare system. This transition from traditional, physician-based healthcare to the independent practice of advanced nurse practitioners was marked by a rigorous show of nurses’ ability to research and implement findings as new knowledge. This essay tries to show the links of Franklin’s revolutionary steps by introducing independent and innovative research in the professional fields of nursing. Through her influence, the profession has established a credible and evidence-based practice where nurses demonstrate a critical knowledge base and a well-defined autonomy. Her inspiration in 1985, as the first university-based, continuous operation nurse-led clinic debuted in the state of Colorado. In the last section, in order to appreciate the importance of this change in the nursing profession, this essay has described the opening of the nurse practitioner clinic in the wellness center at Aurora in Colorado as a result of the practice agreement between a nurse and a physician under Colorado’s Act. Through this essay, the impacts and shifts in the roles of nurses in healthcare have been well explained. The reader will get more information in the last part of the essay about the changes in where nurses practice and the changing status of that work as responsibility is being taken up by nurses. By the mid-20th century, nurse-initiated projects in emergency and triage care, occupational health, and specialty settings all emerged.
4.1 The Emergence of Nurse Practitioners
As healthcare became increasingly complex and advanced, nurses wanted to be able to offer more to their patients. According to Dr. Loretta Ford, the idea of the nurse practitioner was to respond to a need in medical care. The main objective was to provide a new medical care practitioner, who could be more flexible, with nurses and physicians providing this new initiative. The first nurse practitioner program was formed at the University of Colorado as a response to a shortage of family doctors. In 2020, nurse practitioners were the second most well paid profession within nursing, with an average salary of $109,000 yearly. The role nurse practitioners can play in providing health care to the needy, in many different settings. In the USA, nurse practitioners also influenced the passing of the accountable care act, allowing them to receive payment in vision of the care given. This shows how laws and development of the nurse practitioner role can go hand in hand with each other, improving the impact nurse practitioners have in the nation’s health. Moreover, nurse practitioners are increasingly influential in setting up policies of health and medical profession. For example, Sue McInerney, a neonatal nurse practitioner, has grandchildren who live on the farm. She noticed by caring for the farm animals, the children do not get sick. She started to write articles, give presentations to the local parent and she is trying to change the curriculum of the elementary school her grandchildren attend. He tried to include the healthy and active living style in the school subject and finally she achieved it. This shows how nurse practitioners can play a significant role to develop the healthy life style. Also, they may influence a government health portfolio by providing information on best practice and new initiatives. As the result, the health policies will benefit more to the general public. Therefore, nurse practitioners, as an advanced level nurse, can not only provide advanced health care to the patients and consults from other health care professionals, but also play a role in promoting the health of the nation’s population by releasing new information or initiative, based on nurses’ new discoveries and researches that may revolutionize the health care delivery system.
4.2 The Role of Nurses in Public Health
Recent years have seen public health nursing and the role of the public health nurse in particular, become increasingly the predominant form of nursing in the United Kingdom. Public health nursing or PHN is a nursing specialty focused on the prevention and promotion of health. It can be seen as a combination of both primary and tertiary health care, involving health promotion, preventing ill health, improving the health of an entire population, and palliative care and rehabilitation. According to a statement issued by the Royal College of Nursing in 2005, public health nursing has been regarded as a key aspect of meeting the healthcare needs of the people of the UK since the creation of the National Health Service in 1948. As a consequence, modernizing public health nursing services has become a “central feature of the Department of Health’s drive to modernize the NHS” (RCN, 2005). Public health nurses work towards providing a scientific and research-based, population-focused form of health service. They tend to work with communities and families, intervening early to prevent illness and diseases – focusing on keeping the population of the UK as healthy as possible. Public health nursing has been, and remains, very much an evolving field, which adapts in response to changes in needs, advancements in technology, and public health research. Nowadays, public health nurses are employed in a variety of different areas; from the more “classical” public health of environmental health, rural health, and school nursing to more modern roles such as health advising within the prison service and the promotion of self-care and first aid within the workplace. Public health nursing was commonly addressed as “Infirm Nursing” and it expanded to the modern-day public health nursing with the identification of the need for the improvement of healthcare and living conditions in the 1800s. The emergence of the practice of public health nursing in the United States in the 20th century is linked heavily to the considerable influence of Lillian Wald and the Henry Street Settlement in New York. Starting out with only one nurse and one helper, the Henry Street Settlement grew to offer a multitude of services – from tuberculosis treatment to mothers’ classes – which Lillian Wald expertly utilized as a base for the training and equipping of public health nurses. Wald was instrumental in the founding of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing and helped to establish the first official set of educational standards for public health nursing in 1912. The provision of standardized training and education helped to create a professionalized and scientifically focused career path for nurses and served as a catalyst for the widespread growth of public health nursing. Public health nurses in the UK may work with local authorities, work as independent contractors, work for a profit or a non-profit making body, or be employed by the NHS. Public health nursing services might be found within community centers, patients’ homes, an educational institution, a general practice, a hospital, or a different healthcare setting. Public health nurses in the UK may work with local authorities, work as independent contractors, work for a profit or a non-profit making body, or be employed by the NHS. Public health nursing services might be found within community centers, patients’ homes, an educational institution, a general practice, a hospital, or a different healthcare setting.
4.3 Nursing Leadership and Management
It is through nursing leadership and management that a guaranteed continuous success of health care institutions and the services that will be rendered to the patients. In the context of nursing and the care that they need to give to their patients, it is very important to consider the personal attributes of individual nurses, their responses to specific situations that can be replicated for as many times as necessary and should be made known to all members of staff, the experience, skills, and strategies nurses use, and their knowledge. A nurse manager is required to have a wide range of skills and knowledge in order to create and maintain an environment that is propitious to their work and to the health and recovery of patients, and this type of skill does not happen overnight but it has to be developed over time. These sets of skills must be put by the nurse managers under a lot of consideration whenever they embark on managing and leading people. In the first place, they have to realize that other individuals and parties under their management are not just cooperative if they remain under the complete control of the nurse manager. For every day a nurse manager goes to work, each employee is a complete different person in the approach that the nurse manager can use to lead or manage such a person in the case that there is no supporting experience that is put on the table. Leading and managing people is such a resource when the nurses have a command and knowledge of the targets and goals of the team that are being managed, and the specifics of the responsibilities that are under their authority is also known to each and every body in the group. For the nurses in the management and leadership roles, this is seen as a key approach to the successful exercise of the professional duty. By sharing the goals and the specifics of the targets, the personal autonomy and the independent thinking on the part of each member of the team will cede some space to the overall team effectiveness and the personal job satisfaction that is needed to drive the health and personal drive in those who are being led and managed. This will in turn give significant ground for the nurse manager to exercise their experience and knowledge in a manner that present a coherent strategy, and it is possible and receptive to new ideas if they need to be brought on board.
4.4 The Integration of Technology in Nursing Practice
As the healthcare system has become increasingly digital in recent years, nurses have seen a parallel movement toward the integration of technology in nursing practice. This advancement is an exciting one and is often lauded as having the potential to revolutionize the field. Nurses require up-to-date information in order to carry out safe and effective patient care, and the sheer volume of data that is now available to healthcare professionals is staggering. Thanks to technological advances, patient data is now much more accessible and is often available in real time. This means that nurses are able to make quicker and more informed decisions than ever before. For as long as the profession has existed, nurses have evaluated patient symptoms in order to decide on the best course of action. The successful integration of technology can only happen if nurses are properly trained in the use of new equipment and data information systems. In addition, it can be a challenge to make sure that nurses stay up to date with current technologies, as change can happen very rapidly. One of the key challenges of technology in nursing is that many nurses are from a generation that has not been required to use technology in their everyday lives. As a profession, it is therefore necessary to begin to get older nurses comfortable with using technology in the workplace and to actively encourage the acquisition of new technological skills. However, it is worth noting that there is currently a significant shortage of teaching staff in nursing and that many nursing degree programmes are struggling to keep up with current demand. Well-resourced and up-to-date university courses, which offer nurses the chance to learn about new and emerging technologies, must be advocated for if technology is to become a fully integrated part of nursing practice. Successful dissemination of new technological practices in nursing is an important part of ensuring that both patients and professionals will be able to reap the benefits. As more and more devices, systems and other advanced technologies come into use, careful thought will need to be given regarding which technologies will truly become standpoints of efficient, cost-effective and patient-focused care in the UK. The successful integration of technology would be a wonderful step forward in streamlining nursing practices, but it is important to be mindful of the potential obstacles that may be faced along the way. Overall, there has been a very positive response to the advances in technology and how it’s being utilised to benefit nursing. Both the government and the larger health organisations have acknowledged how technology can be used to drive patient care and improve nursing practices. And, looking forward, it is already being recognised by leading nursing professionals as a field that needs to be continually updated. Also, there have been ongoing calls for better funding and more support for research into how nursing can be improved further by these new technologies and their successful integration. Collaborative work and continued efforts to educate and up-skill current nurses in new technological practices are vital to keeping up the necessary momentum in this field. With proper planning and careful nurturing of change, technology could eventually become the norm in nursing practices. This would be a fantastic advancement for both nurses and patients alike.
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Evolution of Nursing Practice: Key Leaders and Historical Events.
How has nursing practice evolved over time? Discuss the key leaders and historical events that influenced the advancement of nursing, nursing education, and nursing roles that are now part of the contemporary nursing profession.
How has nursing practice evolved over time? Discuss the key leaders and historical events that influenced the advancement of nursing, nursing education, and nursing roles that are now part of the contemporary nursing profession.

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