Objectives

Symposium Objectives Discuss challenges of global healthcare Describe nursing roles and responsibility in mitigating the challenges of the global healthcare Global health challenges such as safe drinking water, poor sanitation, maternal and child nutrition, infectious diseases, and shortage of human resources for health care, specifically the global nursing shortage, pose a threat to even the most stabilized countries of this world. There is no greater example validating the need for global nursing collaboration than the outbreak of SARS, first reported in Asia, in February 2003. SARS quickly traveled throughout Asia from person to person and across continents to Europe, North America and South America before the outbreak was contained. Disease has no borders, nurse migration is a reality of the 21st century; shortage of human resources is a GLOBAL crisis that demands urgent attention. The beginning process for designing sustainable global solutions is for nurses, the single largest professional providers of health care to recognize the potential and real impact of global nursing collaboration at all levels of nursing. Nurses in both the developing and developed world must see the critical need for nursing collaboration to mitigate global health challenges beyond their organizations ’ and countries ’ needs! Symposium Contex