Leading Change: How Nurses Can Attract Political Support for the IOM Report on the Future of Nursing

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health” offers a historic opportunity to transform nursing to improve patient care for all Americans.1 If policymakers heed the report's recommendations, the United States could create a future healthcare system that fosters interprofessional collaboration, makes quality care more accessible to diverse populations, promotes wellness and disease prevention, reliably improves health outcomes, and provides compassionate care across the lifespan. Nurses at all levels must take ownership of these recommendations and seek allies from a wide variety of fields, both within and outside of healthcare, to attract the political capital necessary to implement these recommendations. It will take active political involvement of nurses in every community throughout the United States to move these recommendations forward.