President's Message

2008 was quite a year. Transitions in government and upheaval in worldwide economies dominated the news and our lives as the year ended. As I write this, President-elect Obama is preparing to take office, and his transition team is gathering people in small groups throughout the nation to identify priorities for action. Health care is a dominant topic in these meetings, with people arguing that healthcare reform needs to go beyond small “fixes” to financing. William Sullivan put this challenge well in 2005:

Failures in healthcare access and continually rising costs have clarified the limits of the market as a good control mechanism for health care. What to do next has become a decisive political issue for the immediate future. Medicine and nursing could be far more active and important players in how this gets decided. To do that, they would have to engage the public more directly by becoming visible, collective advocates for public protection amid the bewildering changes racking the healthcare world.1

The American Academy of Nursing has been partnering with numerous health professional organizations and foundations to collectively advocate for healthcare reform in this new era. Over the past year, I have written about several central issues such as healthcare homes, truly patient-centered care, and care coordination. These themes of care coordination, healthcare homes, and patient-centered care must not be lost among the economic healthcare reform arguments. Nursing and other caring professions can and must keep the voice alive that argues for the social contract that has for so long been buried in the marketplace. That contract posits for aiding the safe passage of people through illness and health problems and protects the public and the common good. These are challenging times, but ones that promise the opportunity for real reform that goes well beyond professional self-interest.