Chronic illness management in the year 2005

Nurses must study the future of chronic illness management so they can anticipate change and influence the direction it takes. The driving forces of change include social, technological, economic, political, and environmental factors. Pressure to provide value will require providers, insurers, and purchasers to cooperate and coordinate health care services. The preferable future of chronic illness management involves nurses functioning in the role of care coordinators in disease management. To achieve the preferable future the nursing community must communicate the ability of nurses to coordinate care, be involved in developing clinical practice guidelines, produce more highly educated nurse executives capable of assuming positions of power within the community, develop new models of care and new programs to facilitate change, form single service networks that can sub-contract with health plans, and prepare future advanced practice nurses in both the art of nursing and the business of caring.