The topic I have chosen for presentation to you today is entitled, the theory of change in nursing practice or to put it into simpler words. How do new ideas in nursing get started - Where do they come fromulcorner - How are these ideas spread through the social system of nursesulcorner - What makes some Directors of Nursing more ready to accept change than othersulcorner What factors in-fluence than to introduce changeulcorner The process of change has been the subject of considerable research in such diverse disciplines and fields as anthropology and rural sociology, marketing and, also, education, for many years. The studies are called“diffusion”studies, or sometimes“adoption”studies, or“adoption of innovation”studies. They deal specifically with the transmission of innovations to members of a social system, and are considered a subset of research in the general field of communication, Although a number of studies have been undertaken in medicine, and, in the past decade, numerous ones in education, there have been few studies on the process of change in nursing. Yet, nursing has undergone tremendous changes in the past 10 years - the nursing process has been introduced, there is the expanded role of the nurse which is rapidly becoming a regular mode of practice - and many, many more changes, We seem to be always running to try. to keep up with changes that have already taken place. Yet little is known about known about the process of change itself - how practitioners learn about new ideas and techniques, or about the factors which influence nurses to accept some changes and reject others. The purpose of the study I am about. to describe was to analyze the process of change as it functioned in regard to nursing innovations in a selected segment of Canadian hospitals, and to relate the analysis to general research and theory about information transmission and the acceptance of change. Three aspects of the process were investigated : 1. The flow of information about changes in nursing practice through a network of hospitals. 2. Factors influencing the adoption of changes in nursing practice. 3. Factors influencing delay in the adoption process, the rejection of changes, or their discontinuance following adoption.