Patient education is a key element in helping patients to assume responsibility for their own health status and outcomes. Nurses are a primary source for patient education, but beyond the bedside, nurses are not always as accessible. Practitioners have cut office operational costs by using medical assistants and lay personnel.
An Office of the National Nurse could help to make nurses more accessible to the general public. Health care costs are expected to double in the U.S. by 2017. Using nurses effectively to promote wellness and health care education would go a long way in healing the health care crisis.
