Nursing Leaders on Healthcare Misinfo: ‘We’ve Got a Big Problem’

WASHINGTON — Healthcare leaders ripped providers and others in public health for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and encouraged nurses to reform American healthcare during two panel discussions at a health policy conference held Friday.

Healthcare misinformation is “a real shame,” especially when it comes from physicians and nurses, said Christine Grady, MSN, PhD, of the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, at a panel discussion during the American Academy of Nursing’s conference.

Dealing with the consequences has taken its toll on public health. “We’ve got a big problem in terms of what people understand,” she added.

Those in public health who deliberately misinform the American public about COVID-19 vaccines, among other things, “have to be disciplined like anybody else,” said Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Now is the time to broadly reform a system that has not worked for many nurses, among other healthcare workers, Grady said, because the public is paying so much attention to public health.

Nurses have more real-world experience than most of the managers setting policies, she noted, citing controversial visitors’ policies at medical centers that “have created unbelievable heartache.” These policies were often crafted without consulting nurses, she pointed out.

During an earlier panel, nursing leaders proffered ways to change what they characterized as a fundamentally broken healthcare system overall.

“Our systems are failing us,” said Wendy Ellis, DrPH, of George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. Noting the hundreds of thousands of flags placed at the National Mall to honor American COVID victims, she encouraged attendees and virtual viewers to “make sure this shall never happen again.”

The nursing profession needs more help to survive and to prevent another pandemic, she continued. While nurses have been traditionally praised for being human and relating to their patients, they are working in a system that does not allow them to do that right now. “You are commoditized as units,” she said, drawing applause from much of the audience.

“I can’t think of any other time in [the history of] our country when nurses have had this much leverage to affect change,” Ellis added. The system was built on inequity and was actually designed to perform as it is, she noted. “We are not going to rebuild on top of what we have.”

It is time to “recalibrate the social contract” between nurses and society, said Cynda Rushton, PhD, MSN, RN, of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore. “We are not finite, expendable resources.”

The public trusts nurses more than other healthcare professionals, she noted. “Does the public see us as trustworthy because we have not spoken up?”

“It is our moment,” she continued. “We need to be extended the same respect, compassion, and fairness” that nurses typically show their patients. “Most of us have been on overdrive for months now.”