The impact of restructuring on professional nursing practice.

Through the 1990s most hospitals were involved in restructuring. As a result, maintaining professional nursing practice is challenging in these cost-constrained hospital environments. In new models of care, professional nursing practice expectations are often reconceptualized into multidisciplinary care team structures in which the team is empowered and becomes the focus rather than the individual nurse caring for her or his patient. Given that nurses provide the greatest part of patient care in hospitals, professional nursing practice has the potential to differentiate one hospital from another. Consequently, it is in the strategic interest of organizational policy makers to implement initiatives that support professional nursing practice.