{"id":286531,"date":"2026-02-11T23:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/286531\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:25:10","slug":"time100-health-jennifer-mensik-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/286531\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME100 Health: Jennifer Mensik Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rich-text self-baseline font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mb-0 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\" data-testid=\"paragraph-content\">Nurses are the connective tissue underlying healthcare systems, and studies have shown that they can cover care gaps in <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6199666\/physician-shortage-challenges-solutions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">physician shortage<\/a> areas. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy is president of the American Nurses Association (ANA), which represents 5 million nurses in the U.S. and has been advocating for policies that support and protect <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5835150\/florence-nightingale-legacy-nurses\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">nurses<\/a> in their jobs. Recently, the group gathered a coalition of over 90 organizations to support the <a href=\"https:\/\/joyce.house.gov\/posts\/joyce-colleagues-reintroduce-bipartisan-bicameral-bill-to-increase-access-to-nurses\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ICAN Act<\/a> that was reintroduced in 2025, which would remove federal barriers preventing Advanced Practice Registered Nurses from providing care without doctor supervision. \u201cThe research has been clear for decades that nurse practitioners and other advanced practice roles provide quality patient care equal to, if not better than, primary care physicians,\u201d says Mensik Kennedy. ANA also pulled together a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nursingworld.org\/news\/news-releases\/2025\/department-of-educations-loan-proposal-puts-nursing-workforce-and-patient-care-at-risk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">collective petition to Congress<\/a> to requalify nurses as professionals following the U.S. Department of Education&#8217;s new proposed definition of professional degrees, so loan limits don\u2019t become a barrier to entry. Their activism has drawn international support. \u201cWe&#8217;ve gotten letters from across the globe,\u201d Mensik Kennedy says. \u201cThe role of the APRN started in the United States. As countries are trying to develop the role, they look to the U.S. to help provide those standards.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nurses are the connective tissue underlying healthcare systems, and studies have shown that they can cover care gaps&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49043,5587,163,521,85,46,16086,1619,49045,12246,146428],"class_list":{"0":"post-286531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-accolades","9":"tag-franchise","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-list","15":"tag-magazine","16":"tag-special-project","17":"tag-sponsorshipblock","18":"tag-time100-health-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}