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This year’s Maryland Action Coalition Virtual Leadership Summit examined the role of artificial intelligence in the future of the nursing profession.
The ever-changing landscape of nursing — from the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the future of health care to an updated model for community health — was the focus of this year’s Maryland Action Coalition (MDAC) Virtual Leadership Summit on May 20, titled “Revolution vs. Rearrangement: How to Realistically Reimage Nursing Education and Practice.” The University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) hosted the summit.
MDAC is part of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, a nationwide movement to improve health care through nursing that is an initiative of AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The campaign includes action coalitions in 50 states and the District of Columbia working to implement the National Academy of Medicine’s Future of Nursing 2020 - 2030 recommendations.
Innovations in Practice: Future of Community Health
“A lot of times when you’re a leader, you say let’s start with the low-hanging fruit and let’s get some things done that are easy to do. And I really believe in the opposite,” said Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, MSN ’98, RN, ANP, APRN, FAAN, dean and Patricia M. Davidson Professor for Health Equity and Social Justice at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. “Obviously, we need to be able to do the low-hanging fruit and be able to get things done, but it’s the high-hanging fruit that creates new ways of thinking, new collaborations, and new tools.”
Szanton was one of the panelists who led the summit’s “Innovations in Practice: Future of Community Health” session, along with Erin Denholm, MSN, RN, chief nursing officer at DispatchHealth.
Setting a high goal and working toward it can create different innovations, Szanton added. In looking at the American health care system, it’s clear it works as a reactive system, she said. And despite spending a higher percentage of the economy on health care than do peer countries — almost twice as much — the United States still has the worst health outcomes, she said.
For decades, professionals have been discussing how to improve health care in our country, including trying to get everyone insured, Szanton said. That’s a good step — but it doesn’t solve the problem fully, she added.
“But it turns out that insurance access is not enough. And for example, in Baltimore City, 94 percent of people are insured. And yet, we still have the same health inequities,” she said, later adding that health care professionals now understand how many additional factors in someone’s life — segregated schools, toxic environments, lack of housing, for example — also impact well-being.