NursesEverywhere: A Voice to Strengthen Access to Care
The coronavirus pandemic has profoundly challenged and forever changed the U.S. healthcare system and the millions of nurses and other healthcare professionals serving on the front lines of care.
However, with each challenge comes opportunity. The pandemic has dramatically revealed ways in which the health system can be more resilient and provide better access to care for all. Dr. Cole Edmonson, DNP, RN Chief Experience and Clinical Officer for AMN Healthcare, recently helped found an organization dedicated to achieving this goal.
NursesEverywhere is a voluntary, nonpartisan coalition comprised of nationally and internationally recognized healthcare leaders and innovators committed to improving health outcomes and to educating the public about their right to access nursing care.
NursesEverywhere is issuing a call to action to ensure that our country unlocks the full potential of the entire healthcare workforce by providing the public easier access to nurses and other healthcare providers in the most convenient settings using telehealth, from homes to workplaces to all care settings, and to schools.
The NursesEverywhere Expand Nursing Care Survey fielded by the Harris Poll shows 75% of the public believe nurses should be able to treat patients via telehealth in their homes and 86% believe school nurses are necessary to safely re-open schools. And 88% of the public believe that many healthcare disparities in this country could be improved by increased access to nursing care, creating a powerful force for social justice. Almost 90% believe that patients should be able to receive the same level of care from nurses after the pandemic as they did during the pandemic.
“NursesEverywhere is an inclusive movement by the nation’s largest health care profession in partnership with the public to ensure the modernization of healthcare regulations, laws, and practices that impede access to quality equitable care, workforce mobility, top of competency practice, and telehealth delivery,” Dr. Edmonson said. “We are engaging in outreach to the public and to policymakers to make sure these challenges and solutions are better understood and addressed in a sustainable way that decreases healthcare disparities.”
While the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated many opportunities and challenges in public health and the healthcare system overall, it also has illuminated a path forward to a more resilient system, accompanied with a moral call to action that NursesEverywhere is sounding to the American public.