cess a “control center” website tailored to their needs in their homes to connect to the acute care team and manage their own care. Home monitoring devices will provide data and continuous feedback about clinical status. Readmissions to the hospital due to failure of care protocols and inadequate support will be markedly reduced. Healing will occur at home.

Innovative approaches already exist that forecast this model in the future:

• “e-ICU” technology that connects rural hospital ICUs to the expertise of larger trauma hospitals;

• Bar-code medication verification systems and electronic medication administration records;

• Bedside access to medications and supplies; robotics;

• Interdisciplinary care teams that include engineers to identify poorly designed work processes; and

• Tele-home health that monitors patients who at home.

We need to change the way we think about our traditional brick and mortar care delivery system. The emerging changes we believe will be most influential include the following:

• Human Caring Models. Bent and colleagues (2007) reminds us nursing is the discipline that creates the path to advance human health, dignity, and relatedness no matter what our advances in technology may be. Nursing’s body of knowledge related to human caring is essential to the healthcare system and must be incorporated into the design and development of any future care delivery models. Care delivery models with virtual processes can be designed to maintain human relationships for caring and healing.

• Hospital Workplace Transformation. Initiatives such as Transforming Care at the Bedside and Return to Care empower front line teams to make changes to care delivery processes that are patient centered and add value. In addition, Magnet credentialing supports cultures of transformational leadership and infrastructure to support innovations and development of new care delivery models. Human factors engineering in hospital units eliminates wasteful, unsafe workarounds and establishes reliable systems for defect-free care. These initiatives demonstrate the ability of providers to self-organize and innovate for care model transformation.