The time has come for evidence-based staffing and scheduling.

At last, we will have a published source of articles documenting evidence and best practices in a practical publication available to everyone. We are grateful to the editor and publisher of Nursing Economic$ for their vision and support of this very serious issue in nursing and health care. We look forward to a future where nurses and the entire health care team embed evidence and not opinion into our staffing. In the words of Florence Nightingale: "No system can endure that does not march. Are we walking to the future or to the past? Are we progressing or are we stereotyping? We remember that we have scarcely crossed the threshold of uncivilized civilization in nursing; there is still so much to do. Don't let us stereotype mediocrity. We are still on the threshold of nursing" (Ulrich, 1992, p. 11).