Creating community collaboration to improve the care of patients with high blood pressure: lessons from Rochester, New York.

Over the past two years, the business community of Monroe County, which includes Rochester, New York, has been engaging in a collaborative to improve outcomes for people with high blood pressure. As the employers examined the costs of care in the community, they recognized two important factors. First, the costs of care for the uninsured, the underinsured, and the Medicare population influence the business community's cost of care.

Strengthening nurses' political identity through service learning partnerships in education.

The extent to which nursing students are educationally prepared to lead health policy initiatives is inextricably linked to their political identity. Knowing and showing oneself to be a politic person in interactions with others is a dynamic social process that the authors propose can be facilitated by innovative, community-based service learning partnerships. A partnership between an elected city councilman and Registered Nurses in a baccalaureate-level professional issues course demonstrates how service learning can create a context for students' political socialization.