Throughout history, advocacy demonstrated by nurses has led to many advances in healthcare. Florence Nightengale was an advocate in her time and was a huge vocal proponent of sanitation practices and recommending frequent hand hygiene to diminish the spread of infection (Schub & Strayer, 218). Today, nurses continue to serve as advocates for their patients by supporting, on their patients behalf, health care resources. However, it is also important that nurses advocate for their role and profession, as well as the development of social and healthcare policies on behalf of their patients (KostasPolston & Thanavaro, 2015). As nurses are one of the most trusted professions, they have a considerable amount of referent power as well as power in numbers with about 2.9 million RNs in the United States. These attributes put nurses everywhere in a position of power in which they possess the potential to effect change for the better of healthcare and patients everywhere (Schub & Strayer, 2018)
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