By Diana Mason, editor-in-chief emeritus

First, the necessary throat-clearing about who and where: I recently attended a public session held by the Institute of Medicine Initiative on the Future of Nursing. Chaired by University of Miami president and former secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and chief nurse for Cedar Sinai Medical Center Linda Burnes Bolton, the session began with presentations by two nurses involved in the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England: Ann Keen, Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Undersecretary for Health Services, who chairs the British commission; and Jane Salvage, the lead secretariat for the commission and a former contributing editor for AJN.

Now the point: During the formal session, Keen noted that various countries in the UK each have a chief nurse officer (CNO) who is responsible for developing a national nursing strategy. Afterwards, I interviewed Keen and Salvage, who both said they didn’t understand why American nurses were not supporting the call for a CNO for the United States, one who would be charged with developing and overseeing a national nursing strategy for this nation. In their eyes, a CNO who is on par with the surgeon general could help the nation to develop approaches to ensure an adequate nursing workforce, identify barriers to their full utilization, identify new models of care to better promote the health of the public, and develop strategies […]