Nurses Week is also a time to reflect on the nursing profession and how we can work together to improve working conditions as well as quality patient care. Staffing ratios are one of the biggest issues we all face in any field, but especially true in hospital care. Advocate for Nurses Nurses Take DC is a collaborative effort to educate the public and to persuade legislators to vote on safe staffing ratios. Alene Nitzky Phd, RN, OCN, shares her experiences at the 2018 event on her blog. Learn more about the grass roots organization collaboration and their efforts to get S1063 and HR 2392 the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital…
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Is the National Nurse Issue Really Stalled?
In the January, 2009 issue of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN), Roxane Nelson BSN, RN poses the question of whether or not the idea of a National Nurse for America has stalled. When Teri Mills an NP and nurse educator from Portland OR originally proposed the idea in May of 2005, she suggested the creation of an office of a National Nurse in her op-ed piece in The New York Times. Over time the idea, as promoted by The National Nursing Network Organization (NNNO) chaired by Mills, has evolved to elevate and enhance the chief nurse officer who serves under the Surgeon General to the role of the National…
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Share Your Ideas with Nurses in Congress
Health care and the nursing shortage are going to be BIG on the Hot Topics list for the next administration and Congress to discuss this next term…. One of the primary points that I feel very passionate about is that nurses must advocate for themselves, their fellow nurses and their patients. We must have a strong and collective voice. That doesn’t mean that we must all have the same voice. Providing quality patient care means that we often have to be imaginative, inventive and flexible. Home health nurses know that often we have to improvise when we don’t have the exact tool that we need to get a job done.…