Lessons in Excellence for Nurse Administrators

The emergence of a 4-generation society is creating new and different demands for health-related service. Changing needs will continue to shape the health care delivery system, and it is the foresight of today's nursing leaders that will lay the foundation for professional nursing practice for the future. The concepts of excellence found in highly successful companies discussed in the book In Search of Excellence, by Peters and Waterman, can be relevant to nursing administration practice. Excellent companies not only analyze decisions, but actually implement them. In nursing, task force efforts in preparing self-study documents have been most productive. Staying close to the customer is important in business; in nursing, the customers are patients and society as a whole. Business supports and encourages autonomy and entrepreneurship. Nursing has both creative people and innovators who need to be developed as leaders and administrators who are willing to promote and support innovations.