The changing landscape of the health care system and the changing profile of the population require that the system undergo a fundamental shift to provide patient-centered care, which includes: delivering more primary as opposed to specialty care; delivering more care in the community rather than the acute care setting, providing seamless care, enabling all health professionals to practice to the full extent of their education, training, and competencies, and fostering interprofessional collaboration. Achieving such a shift will enable the health care system to provide higher-quality care, reduce errors, and increase safety. Providing care in this way and in these areas taps traditional strengths of the nursing profession. Thus, nurses are so well challenged to address these needs and adapt to the newly formed system.

A shift in the Life of a Nurse:

• 35% Documentation
• 21% Care Coordination
• 19% Patient Care
• 17% Medication Administration
• 7% Patient Assessment

The nursing role is rapidly evolving as nurses are tasked with an even wider range of health care responsibilities. Caring for the sick has certainly gotten more complicated. Hospitals are understaffed and budgets are tight. These are the reasons why nurses are adding to their responsibilities and do all kinds of tasks under the scope of a job.

Today’s nurses aren’t just caring for the sick. They’re changing our very notion of modern medicine and health care delivery. Nurses are giving TED talks, publishing scientific research, developing mobile medical applications, and actively addressing health care policy. They’re collaborating with their colleagues, from social workers and oncologists to hospital administrators and public safety personnel. The field is growing, and so are opportunities for nurse practitioners, DNP and PhD nurses, nurse educators, nurse-anesthetists, and nurse researchers.

New health care technology is also creating opportunities for nurses. More and more aspects of the profession are electronic: Test results, X-rays, blood work, and ordering medication. An array of new technologies — mobile devices, electronic medical records, cloud computing, and teleconferencing — invite nurses to be digitally ambitious.

It’s not just that nursing is becoming a broader field; it’s becoming deeper, too. The opportunity to pursue medical specializations — diabetes, obesity, pharmacology, and more — is blooming, but the real opportunity is in mastering complex, multifaceted issues that impact our health care system and our nation. It’s more than knowing how to perform tasks and procedures; It’s about being a more effective member of the health care team and navigating clinical systems.

New technology won’t preclude traditional care, but it will open up more creative options to teach patients about their health. Nurses will no longer be limited to one-size-fits-all safety pamphlets. Patient education can become more personalized, with hundreds of new medical apps, from glucose monitors to basal body temperature trackers.

Nursing has become more complex in ways that couldn’t have been imagined a generation ago. Now there’s an imperative to be not just a great caregiver but a great innovator too. The demands of health care are calling for a new generation of thinkers who want to be agents of care innovation. It’s a profession for the intellectually curious, lifelong learner.