Abstract: This contemporary historical study examines the health sector environment of the 1990s and the turn of the 21st century, and assesses the policy initiatives undertaken to advance nursing in New Zealand during that period. The authors look at the conditions and forces that saw nursing achieve a new emphasis on advanced and expanded scope of nursing practice, less than a decade after the commencement of New Zealand's first pre-registration nursing degrees.

Abstract: The article is a collaborative writing venture drawing on research findings from New Zealand and Iceland to contribute to the international scholarship on the status and future direction of the nursing discipline. It takes an overview of the international historical trends in nursing knowledge development and proposes a framework for contemporary nursing research that accommodates the past efforts and paradigms of nurse scholars and reflects the changing thinking around the humanness of the health circumstance as the focus of the nursing discipline. It addresses contemporary challenges facing nurses as practitioners and researchers for advancement of practice and delivery of health services, and for influencing health policy.

Abstract: The aims of the study were to provide a deconstructive analysis of the concepts of risk and risk management, and to explore the historical context of mental disorder and the concept of risk, the clinical context of risk assessment and management, the cultural, political and economic context of risk, and the impact on mental health nursing and consumers of mental health services. This is undertaken by providing a critical review of the history of mental illness and its relationship to risk, examination of government policy on clinical risk management, analysis of a risk assessment model and a discussion of the political and economic factors that have influenced the use of risk assessment and management in clinical practice. The concept of risk and its assessment and management have been employed in the delivery of mental health services as a form of contemporary governance. One consequence of this has been the positioning of social concerns over clinical judgement. The process employed to assess and manage risk could be regarded as a process of codification, commodification and aggregation. In the mental health care setting this can mean attempting to control the actions and behaviours of consumers and clinicians to best meet the fiscal needs of the organisation. The authors conclude that the mental health nursing profession needs to examine carefully its socially mandated role as guardians of those who pose a risk to others to ensure that its practice represents its espoused therapeutic responsibilities.

Abstract: This paper explores the concept of innovation in nursing, the inherent set of characteristics that need to be present in order for innovations to succeed, and the barriers that impede innovation from occurring. Successful innovations developed and implemented by nurses are featured, and organisational factors necessary to support innovation are described. This paper is based on a presentation given by the author at the 23rd Quadrennial ICN Congress and 7th International Regulation Congress in Taipei in May 2005.