Book excerpt: Contemporary Nursing, Issues, Trends, & Management, 6th Edition prepares you for the rapidly evolving world of health care with a comprehensive yet focused survey of nursing topics affecting practice, as well as the issues facing today's nurse managers and tomorrow's nurse leaders. Newly revised and updated, Barbara Cherry and Susan Jacob provide the most practical and balanced preparation for the issues, trends, and management topics you will encounter in practice. Content mapped to the AACN BSN Essentials emphasizes intraprofessional teams, cultural humility and sensitivity, cultural competence, and the CLAS standards. Vignettes at the beginning of each chapter put nursing history and practice into perspective, followed by Questions to Consider While Reading This Chapter that help you reflect on the Vignettes and prepare you for the material to follow. Case studies throughout the text challenge you to apply key concepts to real-world practice. Coverage of leadership and management in nursing prepares you to function effectively in management roles. Career management strategies include advice for making the transition from student to practitioner and tips on how to pass the NCLEX-RN ® examination. Key terms, learning outcomes, and chapter overviews help you study more efficiently and effectively. Helpful websites and online resources provide ways to further explore each chapter topic. Coverage of nursing education brings you up to date on a wide range of topics, from the emergence of interactive learning strategies and e-learning technology, to the effects of the nursing shortage and our aging nursing population. Updated information on paying for health care in America, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and statistics on health insurance coverage in the United States helps you understand the history and reasons behind healthcare financing reform, the costs of healthcare, and current types of managed care plans. A new section on health information technology familiarizes you with how Electronic Health Records (EHRs), point-of-care technologies, and consumer health information could potentially impact the future of health care. Updated chapter on health policy and politics explores the effect of governmental roles, structures, and actions on health care policy and how you can get involved in political advocacy at the local, state, and federal level to help shape the U.S. health care system. The latest emergency preparedness and response guidelines from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) prepare you for responding to natural and man-made disasters.