[Visions for the future--nursing as a profession in German-speaking Swiss health care].

Social, scholarly, and technical changes and changes in health politics have a lasting influence on the nursing profession. The development of nursing science programs can be seen in this context and institutions, which offer educational programs for nurses, have to orient them toward the new demands of the profession. Up to now in the German-speaking realm, published data, which describe the changes the nursing profession can expect, have not been available, nor have possible future fields of activity of nursing been examined. In order to close this gap, a group of opinion leaders and experts in nursing in German-speaking Switzerland were studied. Eighty-one people were surveyed by means of a questionnaire, and ten people were interviewed in-depth. The results reflect the visions and perspectives of the nursing profession of the future in German-speaking Switzerland. The expectation is that nursing should deal increasingly with sociopolitical changes and that the main issues of nursing with regard to type of client and locations where care is given will change. A re-orientation toward strengthening professional identity is called for in the following areas: involvement in determining and shaping decisions in politics and health politics; taking entrepreneurial initiatives; building clinical practice on caring, patient preferences, and evidence; making professional training and continuing education clinically-oriented as well as the development and the establishment of nursing science. Through a re-orientation, nursing should be better able to meet the challenges, which it faces because of health and social problems in the population. A great discrepancy exists between the expectations for nursing in the future and present reality. The challenge will be to see whether it will be possible to close the gap between visions and reality by means of training, continuing education, and changes in clinical practice.