Opinion: To improve health care, bring in the nurses — stat

Some of the largest health care systems in America do not have any nurses serving on their boards of directors. That is a huge oversight, especially in a time of rapid change in health care delivery, when consumers and providers would benefit from having nurses' frontline perspective present in boardrooms as healthcare policy decisions are made. Last month, nurse leaders from 21 national nursing and other health-related organizations came together to change that. The nursing leaders launched the national Nurses on Boards Coalition, which has a goal to put 10,000 nurses on boards of corporate and nonprofit health care organizations by 2020.