Throughout the history of nursing, nurses have served their communities and continue to fill many essential roles in healthcare and population health. Nurses promote healthy lifestyles, advocate for patients and provide health education. They also provide direct patient care. As key members of healthcare teams, they provide our communities with the knowledge needed for healthy living. The exact roles of nurses have changed somewhat over the years, but their importance in healthcare remains strong and continues to grow.
Overview of Historical Nursing Roles
Throughout the history of nursing, nurses have served their communities and continue to fill many essential roles in healthcare and population health. Nurses promote healthy lifestyles, advocate for patients and provide health education. They also provide direct patient care. As key members of healthcare teams, they provide our communities with the knowledge needed for healthy living. The exact roles of nurses have changed over the years, but their importance in healthcare remains strong and continues to grow.
Overview of Historical Nursing Roles
Caring for the sick has always been an important part of everyday life, but the evolution of the nursing profession into its current state is a more recent development. Until a century ago, medical knowledge was very primitive, but caregivers throughout history did what they could to provide comfort to seriously ill and dying people.
In the 1800s, with multiple wars such as the Civil War and Crimean War causing injuries and spreading disease among soldiers and civilians alike, the nursing profession as we know it today began to develop. The modern hospital, growing knowledge of sanitation practices and other recent developments made it easier for nursing to make a meaningful difference to patient survival and health. This decisively shifted the role of nurses from comforters to healthcare professionals who provide evidence-based treatment and wellness education.
Nursing Roles Today
Nurses in the modern era do so much more than care for hospital patients at the bedside. In every aspect of healthcare, nurses work to provide education, promote healthy practices, share their expertise and help patients heal. Guiding patients and their families, nurses can provide people in a community with referrals for other services, resources and classes.
Nurses also serve as leaders in healthcare facilities not only by managing departments but also by serving in other administrative positions. Many nurses are also teachers — from teaching diabetes education classes to lecturing at the university level. Serving patients and improving the health of our communities can lead nurses to pursue a wide variety of different roles.
Nursing is still evolving. Nurses are becoming more skilled and knowledgeable as nursing research and education continue to advance and nursing programs become more accessible. The roles that nurses serve in healthcare are becoming even more significant. In the United States, the challenge of serving more patients and providing healthcare to underserved populations may increase the opportunities for nurses to become primary care providers. As evidence, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of nurse practitioners to grow 52% between 2020 and 2030.
A long-running shortage of nurses further drives continuous demand for qualified nurses in many regions across the country. This shortage of nurses is rooted in numerous factors like the rapidly aging U.S. population, the large portion of the nursing workforce entering retirement age and the high rate of nurse burnout and turnover.
Plus, the nurse shortage, burnout rate and high incidence of compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress have been highlighted and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet the pandemic has also spurred the rapid growth of travel nursing and higher levels of compensation for qualified nurses willing to work in challenging times.
Around the world, nurses continue to make a difference for citizens and communities. Historically, there were people who cared for the sick and the dying with the resources and knowledge available to them. This concept of caregiving was a precursor to the modern nursing profession. As the need for qualified nurses grew and as scientific knowledge of medicine advanced, nursing became more effective. Nurses became the highly skilled and well-educated professionals they are today.
Learn about the Eastern Michigan University online Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.
