“All the results of good nursing may be spoiled or utterly negatived by one defect, viz.: in petty management, or in other words, by not knowing how to manage that what you do when you are there, shall be done when you are not there.” This excerpt from “Notes on Nursing” by Florence Nightingale serves as a good introduction to Nursing Administration, which is intended to achieve improvement of health and QOL as nurses apply a wide variety of resources effectively and creatively when they provide nursing care; and to provide a systematically organized environment for performing nursing tasks. In a broad sense it also involves the rules and regulations pertaining to nursing as a profession.
　All nurses need basic knowledge of nursing management to assure the quality of nursing care.　A wide range of subjects are included and stretch from Nursing Organizational Theory, Nursing Service Management Theory, Human Resources Utilization Theory, Nursing Management Theory, Nursing Economic Theory through Nursing Systems and Policies Theory. Nursing Administration does not have a long history yet, and the development of administration pertaining to nursing in particular (in contrast to that pertaining to business enterprises) has only started. Social security reform towards comprehensive community care is also presently underway in Japan, and it is also necessary to consider the role that nursing management can play here.