Designed to Lead!

Blog contribution by NIHD President, Elizabeth Johnson, PhD, MS-CRM, RN

This year, we have centered our theme on advocacy, which fuels innovation, workforce growth, and recognition.

I write this from Washington, D.C., ahead of an advocacy day, often called Hill Days, where clinicians and allies step away from their daily work to help shape the policies that define our communities and the future of healthcare delivery. It is a rush of movement between offices, memorizing talking points, and interpreting legislation in real time.

In these spaces, I am reminded that advocacy is, at its heart, the work of translation. It is the work of turning lived experience into policy, and policy into something meaningful for the people and places we serve. I have learned from physicians, fellow nurses, and government affairs leaders the importance of storytelling and making complex decisions tangible at the community level.

Nurses are exceptionally positioned to lead in this work through communication, empathetic listening, systems thinking, and problem solving grounded in negotiation.

In a period of rapid change and variability, the importance of advocacy has only intensified. Skill-building opportunities are expanding through organizations like Healing Politics and other resources listed in this American Nurse Journal article, equipping nurses to lead with greater confidence in policy spaces.

Advocacy is not only for the Hill. It includes showing up in shared governance, unit leadership, design planning, and everyday decisions that shape care delivery. It includes championing best practice during project development, asking better questions about safety and dignity, and ensuring that the voices closest to care remain present where decisions are made.

A recent feature in The Wall Street Journal reinforces what is increasingly clear. Nursing is projected as one of the most stable, trusted, and economically powerful professions in today’s workforce. Across the nation, nurses are recognized not only for what they do, but for the systems they shape and the futures they enable.

With the evolution of the American Nurses Association Scope and Standards to explicitly include innovation, this is our moment to lead with intention.

Nurses are designing care delivery, guiding digital transformation, and shaping both the built environment and the systems where health happens. We are advancing virtual and distributed models of care. We are helping ensure that emerging technologies reflect human needs. We are elevating the visibility of nursing’s full contribution through reimbursement models and policy pathways that recognize intellectual, relational, and coordination labor.

At NIHD, we know this influence extends far beyond clinical practice alone. It reaches into the design of spaces, workflows, communities, and systems that support health, belonging, and possibility.

While this is a time of challenge, it is also a defining moment to shape who we are and who we want to become. Throughout this week, our giveaways are designed to spark ideas, invite reflection, and support lifelong learning. Our profession’s legacy is your legacy. Let us celebrate you this week and every week forward!

Happy Nurses Week!