The current health care system is moving in the direction that integrates health promotion and primary care with  community-based health care services and quaternary care hospitals. In this new system. people will have to become more engaged in managing their own health care challenges and engaging in  decisions affecting their health.


These changes will require a paradigm shift from the predominant deficit model of care to a strengths-based model. In turn, a new framework will be needed for educating nurses and retraining nurse clinicians, educators, and managers/leaders to fulfill new roles and develop new ways of engaging and partnering with patients and families, physicians and other health care providers.

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The Institute will  bring together like-minded, committed individuals and organizations who share in the vision of a more compassionate, humanized health care system that honours the person in the patient and provides family focused care. It is only through the concerted efforts and dedication of many that Large System Transformation in health care, guided by the philosophy, principles, and approaches of Strengths-Based Nursing and Healthcare, will the dream become the new health care reality. 

Over the years there have been a number of solutions put forward on how to humanize our disease-centric, deficit-based, medically driven health care system to make it more responsive to the  health care needs of its citizens.


Patient/Family-Centered Care, Empowerment, Collaboration, Health Promotion and most recently, Patient Engagement, and Patient Experiences have become part of the new lexicon of 21st-century health care delivery. Yet our system remains largely unchanged because its theoretical foundations have remained unaltered.  Few know how to translate these  ideals into reality. Yet, the way forward is apparent:  what all of the proposed solutions have in common is a focus on people's strengths.


The International Institute for Strengths-Based Nursing & Healthcare is dedicated to educating, training and researching Strengths-Based Nursing to bring about a sea change in attitudes, behaviour, and culture that will create a comprehensive, compassionate, and caring health care system.


Copyright 2015. International Institute of Strengths-Based Nursing and Health Care. All Rights Reserved.

Together we can go from strength to strength

Why an Institute Dedicated to Strengths-Based Nursing and Healthcare?