Translating social justice into clinical nurse specialist practice.

Translating social justice into clinical nurse specialist (CNS) practice involves not only facilitating equitable access to healthcare resources but also changing the definition of health from individual centric to population based. Clinical nurse specialists working within hospitals or healthcare systems generally have not explored the ethical conflicts between demand and available healthcare resources. Application of social justice to CNS practice requires microallocation decisions in direct patient care and macroallocation decisions in the distribution of all societal goods that alleviate health disparities. This article reviews the meaning, history, and current basis for the application of the principle of social justice to CNS practice.