PUTTING PREVENTION INTO PRACTICE

One of the three broad goals of Healthy People 2000 is that preventive services will be available to all Americans, Although there is profes sional agreement on the merits of prevention, there are challenges rel ated to implementing preventive health care, Six of these challenges a re confusion in terminology, issues related to nursing autonomy and in itiative, differing conceptual frameworks, complexity of coordination within a delivery system that does not reward preventive services, pre valent cultural beliefs, and lack of uniform recommendations regarding prevention, The Put Prevention into Practice (PPIP) program is a nati onal strategy to address those challenges. The American Nurses Associa tion and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners contributed to th e development of the PPIP program, These organizations are actively di sseminating the information through train-the-trainer methodology and other educational programs that will prepare nurses to improve the hea lth of the population through the provision of preventive health servi ces.