Chaos

A Leader's Friend or Foe

Edwardson, Sandra R. PhD, RN, FAAN

Sandra R. Edwardson, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been dean of the School of Nursing since 1990. Prepared in health services research and administration, her research has focused on alternative systems for delivering and evaluating health care and on self-care responses to symptoms by elderly people.

Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice 4(4):p 253-254, November 2003.

Chaos theory assumes that complexity is so great that scientists in the past could not rationally track it. The author applies this concept to current health care environments and offers guidance to nurses who are struggling in leadership roles to manage change and extract order and pattern in their daily practice environments. Order is seen as relative, and in our fast-moving health care system, it is apparent only in the long run.