"Nurses have got to start thinking about ownership…." - interview with American Nurses Association President Beverly Malone - Interview

Nursing Homes, Sept, 1998

Peck: Some say long-term care financing and organization will have to improve first. How do you envision the "ideal" long-term care situation?

Dr. Malone: To begin with, I think a lot more nurses must start thinking about owning long-term care facilities themselves. With their knowledge, I think they will prove to be more than competitive with the other folks out there. Baby Boomers will be very demanding of quality, and more than a few providers are going to be left behind; this is a great opportunity for nurses to take hold through ownership.

We also need more nurses involved in political decision-making bodies. We have three nurses in the House of Representatives right now, and we need more in the House, the Senate and in state legislatures. I'm sure the ANA would support any NADONA members who might consider running.

Finally, with some long-term care moving away from institutions and out to the home and community, I think we need more efforts like our Community Nursing Demonstration Project, which was authorized in 1987 to provide a full continuum of Medicare Part B benefits, for a fixed fee, to enrollees in four organizations: Carondelet Health Services in Tucson, Arizona; Carle Clinic Association in Urbana, Illinois; Living at Home Block Nurse Program in St. Paul, Minnesota; and Visiting Nurse Service of New York in Long Island City. All of these are demonstration projects and all are promising models for the future.

In general, I think we nurses have to ask ourselves, Are we going to continue functioning in the same professional model we always have, while others see the new opportunities in healthcare and take advantage of them, or are we going to think about ourselves and what we do in new ways?

For further information, phone ANA headquarters at (202) 651-7000; fax (202) 651-7001; Web site: http:www.nursingworld.org.