The COVID-19 Pandemic’s wide-ranging impact is being felt across range of sectors, particularly health sector. The high mortality and morbidity rates indicate that the health sector worldwide are caught unprepared for a pandemic of this speed and scale. Therefore, various efforts are needed to increase the resilience of the health system to ensure that a country is able to prevent, prepare for, detect, adapt, respond and recover effectively to various public health threats by ensuring optimal quality of health services in all aspects.

The huge impact of COVID-19 on the health sector indicates the need to rebuild the health systems sustainably, more equitably and closer to communities. Strengthening primary healthcare and public health system, empowering the community and improving health workers’ knowledge and skills can be carried out to achieve the goal. Nurses as part of health providers who stand in the first line in the health system play significant role in increasing resilience. Starting from preparing to responding to these conditions, not only by optimizing the strengthening of the health system but also by empowering the community.

The WHO position paper “Building health systems resilience for UHC and health security during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond”, provides the following recommendations for building resilience and seeking integration between promoting Universal Health Care (UHC) and ensuring health security:

• Leverage the current response to strengthen both pandemic preparedness and health systems.
• Invest in essential public health functions including those needed for all-hazards emergency risk management.
• Build strong Primary Health Care foundation
• Invest in institutionalized mechanisms for whole-of society engagement
• Create and promote enabling environments for research, innovation and learning
• Increase domestic and global investment in health system foundations and all-hazards emergency risk management
• Address pre-existing inequities and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on marginalized and vulnerable populations.

Along with that the third goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), “Ensure healthy live and promote wellbeing for all at all ages”. An integrated approach and various health innovations are absolutely necessary to achieve the goals through increasing the resilience and quality of the health care system on an ongoing basis.

In line with this, the Departments of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada will organize International Joint Conference on Nursing Science (IJCNS 2022) under the theme “Bringing Innovation to Strengthen Society for Resilient and Sustainable Healthcare System” is the important step to address the importance of preparing nursing roles as well as other health professionals in healthcare services by sharing and discussing the innovation to strengthen for resilience and sustainable healthcare system . In addition to nursing students, nursing researchers, nursing educators, clinical nurses, nursing administrators, nursing leaders, and nursing managers, the IJCNS2022 is aimed at all health professionals in the world.