Health care professionals are increasingly aware that persons are complex and live in relation with other complex human communities and broader systems. Complex beings and systems are living and evolving in nonlinear ways through a process of mutual influence. Traditional standardized approaches in chronic disease management do not address these non-linear linkages and the meaning and changes that impact day-to-day life and caring for self and family. The RN health coach role described in this paper addresses the complexities and ambiguities for persons living with chronic illness in order to provide person-centered care and support that are unique and responsive to the context of persons’ lives. Informed by complexity thinking and relational inquiry, the RN health coach is an emergent innovation of creative action with community and groups that support persons as they shape their health and patterns of living. 1. Introduction What is the appeal of complexity thinking for nurses in practice and for nursing as a discipline? Possibly, it is the idea of possibility itself and the appeal of the reality of ambiguity and nonlinear change that typify nursing work. Nurses come from a place of complexity, a place of understanding lived experiences (suffering, hope, fear, and violence), a place of practices that lurk in the borderlands of other more defined disciplinary fields. Many nurses who work with persons in community have a deep and embodied understanding of the complexities, ambiguities, and possibilities of working toward some betterment with persons in the context of their complex lives. The purposes of this paper are to describe a relatively new nursing role, the registered nurse health coach (RNHC), and to explore the relationships among complexity thinking and the emergent practices of the RNHC in community settings. 2. The Registered Nurse Health Coach The health coach is a new role in Canada, and the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MoHLTC) in Ontario may be the first ministry to designate specific resources to support nurses in the coaching role. The coaching role has been developed over the past decade in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and research about the effectiveness of the coaching role for helping persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus and other chronic illnesses is promising [1]. Prior to examining qualities and responsibilities of the health coach as conceptualized in our project, a brief view of health coaching is reviewed in a broader context. Health professionals are increasingly acknowledging that persons
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