Reply by Reid Ponte to Ingram, Wilcox, Rose on "The American Health Care System at a Crossroads..."

Dear Ms. Ingram , Ms. Wilcox, and Ms. Rose,

Your response to my article, " The American Health Care System at a Crossroads was powerful. The experiences that you described related to practice environments and mentorship will further encourage nurse leaders, staff nurses, and advanced practice nurses to collaborate to determine the best solutions to the problems that continue to exist within our health care organizations. Each health care institution and practice environment within it, needs a well defined infrastructure to assure that patient care and the related programs are monitored, evaluated, and improved on an on going basis.

Embracing the Magnet standards, either through full recognition or deploying magnet standards throughout an organization, is one key way for nurses and nurse leaders to assure that their practice environments are what they should be: collaborative, respective, excellent, and patient centered.

I also agree with your statements about the nurse's role in health promotion. Health promotion will be the key area in our work in the years ahead. Embracing and advancing programs in smoking cessation, obesity, cancer prevention and control, stress reduction, and depression are just a few of the key areas that nurses do, and will continue to hold pivotal roles in the health of our children, middle-aged, and aged.

I applaud you for your vision and leadership.

Sincerely,

Patricia Reid Ponte