Society for the Advancement of Disaster Nursing: Exploring the Path to Excellence

Major disasters occurring within the Unites States require nursing participation as a component of a successful response. Disaster nursing includes the care of populations affected by disasters, public health emergencies, and mass casualty events, both natural and man-made. A unique knowledge base, abilities, and skills are needed to respond appropriately to health care and human service needs resulting from these events.

Despite prior efforts to advance disaster nursing as a specialty, none were sustainable and a professional framework for establishing standards and guidelines remains lacking.

Disaster nursing is a complex arena where the intersection of competence, scope of practice, regulation, and clinical guidelines continues to evolve. Professional credibility and our contribution to disaster response lie in our ability to articulate and advance professionalism. Disaster nursing as a specialty practice requires a similar foundational framework to nursing specialties recognized by the American Nurses Association within a model of professional practice in order to ensure population outcomes that are reflective of safe, quality, evidence-based practice.

It is time to define a disaster nursing scope of practice, establish standards for care, identify best practices, and pursue the establishment of an independent professional organization within the field of disaster nursing. This will establish the necessary foundation for optimizing nursing's contribution to and support of the National Health Security Strategy. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:641-646).