Professional Development of Nursing professionals

Introduction Nursing has become the fastest growing profession within the health care field. Nursing has increased not only in demand but also in standards of patient care and expectations. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) discusses various changes within the scope of nursing as well as how nursing has and impact on the future for advancing health. Furthermore, IOM has significantly impacted the nursing education, nursing practice, as well as nurses roles as leaders. Nursing Education In order to become a nurse we have to educationally prepared, this entails achieving various degrees such as associates, baccalaureate, masters and /or doctorates. But this does not mean that is the only way nurses can receive their education, there are also other fields in nursing that are gaining grounds rapidly which include Nurse Practitioners (NP’s), Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN’s), Certified Registered Nurse anesthetists (CRNA’s) etc. these new practicing fields have increased the scope nurses and removed the idea of traditional nurse settings. Now nurse has several professional role besides the traditional role of caregiver, such as teacher, client advocate, manager, evaluator, researcher, consultant, and case manager these are only a few them. Due to this kind of impact this has led to a shift the nursing fundamentals. Nurses now have to provide seamless community care which means that they would have to receive appropriate education and will have practice to the fullest extent. This allows us to increase the use of the new evidence based practice at the bedside of the patient for more optimal quality of care which leads to the delivery of more efficient safer and patient centered care. Nursing Practice The IOM report on nursing practice, particularly in primary care has huge