Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) are advanced practice nurses who play a unique and important role in ensuring that patients receive high quality care based on the best and most recent research evidence. Their contributions to improving health care and health care delivery will be celebrated during the seventh annual National CNS Recognition Week, September 1 – 7.
CNSs provide interprofessional, system-wide leadership. They create, monitor and evaluate cost-effective, evidence-based policies, procedures, protocols and best practice models.
There are approximately 72,000 CNSs nationwide. The National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) established National CNS Recognition Week in 2009 to commemorate the contributions of Hildegard Peplau to nursing and health care. Born in 1909, Dr. Peplau was a prominent nursing theorist whose landmark book, Interpersonal Relations in Nursing, emphasized the nurse-client relationship as the foundation for nursing practice and today serves as the basis of the CNS role in health care.