Opportunities and strategies in contemporary health system executive leadership.

The contemporary health care environment presents opportunities for nurse executive leadership that is patient and family centered, satisfying to professional nurses and their colleagues, and results in safe quality care that is fiscally responsible and evidence based. This article focuses on the strategic areas of systemness, people, performance, and innovation and offers strategies and tactics to help move nursing in integrated delivery systems from important entity-based services to a system approach where the nursing leadership team and entity chief nursing officers are recognized as major contributors to system success.