What is the Role of a Nurse Coach?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over three million nurses in the United States. This makes us the largest group of healthcare professionals in the world, and as such, we have a very important role to play in the healthcare industry.
In fact, we’re the backbone of the system. We handle sensitive information, assist with complicated treatments and procedures, and help our patients manage all manner of illness — all while working crazy hours and keeping smiles on our faces.
After years of taking on this challenging work, most of us nurses find ourselves wondering:
Isn’t there something more I can be doing? A way to find more fulfillment in my work and to have a longer-lasting impact on the lives of my patients? ?
Of course, it’s no secret that the healthcare model is changing. Alternative medicine has been growing in popularity for years, as patients start looking for sustainable solutions and customized care. We nurses have stepped up and responded to this need by merging our expertise with holistic medicine to become Nurse Coaches.
Maybe you’ve heard about Nurse Coaching from fellow nurses who’ve joined our ranks. Or perhaps you’ve considered becoming a Nurse Coach yourself. Here we’ll discuss the role of a nurse coach and how you can use this certification to make significant changes in your patients’ lives.
What Do Nurse Coaches Do?
A Nurse Coach is a registered nurse who uses traditional and alternative medicine to help their patients improve their overall health and well-being. We work to create a deeper connection with our patients, learning about their specific needs and health goals and helping them achieve a truly lasting level of health.
But what exactly do Nurse Coaches do?.
Promote Holistic Health and Wellness
As a Nurse Coach, you have many tools at your disposal to help your patients get healthy. Yes, you have the usual medical treatments, but you can also introduce lifestyle medicine for a natural treatment plan that doesn’t JUST treat an illness but instead treats the whole patient.
What kind of lifestyle medicine are we talking about? Plant-based diets, mindfulness and meditation, the healing power of social relationships — all these and more can be part of a Nurse Coach’s guidance. It’s up to you to co-create the right program with your patient.
Empower Patients to Reach their Goals
Let’s be honest; making lifestyle changes is hard. We’re creatures of habit, and we don’t always like adjusting those habits, even if it’s for our own good. This is why so many people struggle to maintain healthy routines like mindfulness, good sleep hygiene, and proper diet and exercise.
So how can we help our patients stay healthy? We have to turn to another role Nurse Coaches take on: coaching. Part of your training involves learning proven coaching techniques that inspire and empower your patients to set realistic goals, work toward them, and finally reach that finish line.
Create Long-Lasting Change
For many years, we nurses have been helping our medical colleagues apply mere band-aids to our patients. Yes, the current system helps relieve pain, treat illness, and improve patients’ quality of life. But how long is it before they’re back in the doctor’s office?
As a Nurse Coach, you don’t just treat illness; you prevent it. The lifestyle changes you encourage, coupled with coaching, will lead to lasting changes in your patients’ lives, keeping them healthy, balanced, and happy for years to come.
The Importance of Nurse Coaching
The importance of Nurse Coaching really can’t be understated. The fact is that Americans today are sick, stressed, and tired. Sure, another prescription might help them manage their current state, but how will it affect us in the long run?
Nurse Coaching moves beyond mere symptom management to create true physical, mental, and emotional wellness for all your patients. The work you do in this specialized field can result in healthier, happier people who remain that way.
What’s more, as Nurse Coaching becomes more common (and all signs suggest that it will), we might see the entire healthcare system shift from treating a list of symptoms and ailments to actually treating a person. Doesn’t that sound amazing?
If you want to see your patients capable of managing their well-being, Nurse Coaching will bring you more fulfillment and joy than the standard model of care ever will. And if you want to become a certified Nurse Coach, our Nurse Coaching Certificate Program will help you get there.
Contact us today to learn more about our immersive certification program. You can speak with a real-life Nurse Coach or check out our free training to learn more about Nurse Coaching and how it can change the healthcare industry and your future.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the focus of Nurse Coaching?
Nurse Coaching seeks to help patients take control of their own health — and their own lives. Unlike traditional nursing, which focuses on treating illnesses and managing symptoms, Nurse Coaching offers a holistic approach to treatment that helps heal a patient’s body, mind, and spirit.
As a Nurse Coach, you’ll teach your patients how to set health-related goals and give them the tools, guidance, and encouragement they need to reach them. You’ll use your nurse training and expertise, as well as complementary and alternative modalities like stress management, nutritional coaching, and lifestyle medicine, to empower your patients and help them achieve lasting, sustainable well-being.
Nurse Coaches can address all areas of health and lifestyle, which means that nothing is off the table.
Why is coaching important in nursing?
Coaching is important in nursing for two main reasons: The people want it, and they NEED it. About 40% of Americans are living with a chronic illness. And one in five Americans is living with a mental illness. Our country is sick, exhausted, and stressed, and today’s healthcare system isn’t doing them any favors!
People today are tired of the standard model of care, and they’re looking for a way to improve their health, calm their minds, and achieve a better quality of life. That’s why over 30% of American adults are turning to some form of complementary medicine.
Nurse Coaching combines the medical training of our current healthcare model with the intuitive, lasting benefits of lifestyle medicine to facilitate total health transformation. And best of all, it puts the power right back in the patients’ hands.
Aren’t all nurses already health coaches?
This is a common misconception, but the real answer is a hard NO. While Nurses are trained in a variety of areas around health and wellbeing, no where in nursing school or on the job are we taught how to effectively coach our patients and clients.
Ever wondered why it sometimes feel like you see the same patients again and again? Like your patient education goes in one ear and out the other? Well, the reasons for this are pretty simple.
Most nurses have never been trained in the art and science of coaching, which is a very unique modality and skillset that will allow you to communicate with and empower your patients in an entirely new way.
Is a Nurse Coach different from a health coach?
Nurse Coaching differs from health coaching in that extra training and certification are required to practice it. While any lay person can call themselves a health coach with little to no training, all Nurse Coaches are registered nurses with an extraordinary amount of training and practice. As a Nurse Coach, you use your nursing background to help patients manage their current health conditions (relieving symptoms, managing medication, etc.) while also using your coaching skills to help patients make lifelong changes that benefit their health.
Another difference is that Nurse Coaching has a certifying body regulating the practice. Technically, anyone can become a health coach after a weekend course on wellness, but this leads to misinformation within the industry. The American Holistic Nursing Credentialing Corporation currently offers two credentials for Nurse Coaches: Nurse Coach Board Certified (NC-BC) and Health and Wellness Nurse Coach Board Certified (HWNC-BC), which lends additional credibility to the work Nurse Coaches do.
How can Nurse Coaching improve overall health?
Nurse Coaches can promote overall health by encouraging their clients to improve their habits, stress levels, sleep hygiene, nutrition, fitness, relationships, and more. More importantly, Nurse Covers help their patients uncover the roots of their mental and physical health problems and then offer holistic solutions that can contribute to long-term health and wellness.
At The Nurse Coach Collective, we refer to our Nurse Coaches as “Transformative” because we’ve seen the power a Nurse Coach has to facilitate change. By serving our patients as nurses, listeners, motivators, and healthcare educators, we Nurse Coaches have seen countless lives completely changed for the better.
To learn more about Nurse Coaching, check out our free training today.
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