Some of the largest health care systems in America do not have any nurses serving on their boards of directors. That is a huge oversight, especially in a time of rapid change in health care delivery, when consumers and providers would benefit from having nurses' frontline perspective present in boardrooms as health care policy decisions are made. Last month, nurse leaders from 21 national nursing and other health-related organizations came together to change that. The nursing leaders launched the national Nurses on Boards Coalition, which has a goal to put 10,000 nurses on boards of corporate and nonprofit health care organizations by 2020.
A statewide investigation by The News Leader discovered Zientek among 900 nurses publicly disciplined by the licensing board from 2007 to mid-2013 for drug theft and use at work. Key findings emerge from a yearlong examination of thousands of pages of public records, dozens of interviews with nurses and experts and days spent observing administrative hearings: •Across Virginia, scores of patients in pain during the last decade were denied necessary medication because a nurse was stealing it. •Employers struggle to catch nurses with drug problems, and when they find them don't always report the nurses to the state.
An unidentified patient was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital for Ebola testing on Tuesday, but if the case had presented at a different hospital would staffs have been prepared? The question has been plaguing the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA). Its members have been asking for statewide training and protocol to be put in place at Bay State hospitals for months. David Schildmeier, the director of public communications for the MNA, acknowledged that several Massachusetts hospitals have been designated as Ebola treatment centers, but without "uniform and consistent training and preparation...there could be a break in the system that could cause exposure to a caregiver, or worse, to a community member."
When the Ebola virus hit home in the United States in September, Sandra Ward, an emergency room nurse at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, was eager to get the latest training to protect herself. But during a session in which nurses practiced putting on protective gear, she noticed the hood was missing, leaving her exposed. "We see this picture of a hood that the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has started recommending a couple of weeks ago, but we haven't gotten it yet," Ward said last week. "It scares me." That fear has sparked a vigorous debate over how much preparation and training is enough for health care workers to deal with the Ebola virus, after two Texas nurses contracted the disease from an infected patient.
State law provides for a three-year prison sentence and $6,000 fine against those who harm law enforcement officials. But those convicted of assaulting nurses, doctors, firefighters and emergency medical technicians get two-year sentences and $4,000 fines. According to a recent Star Tribune analysis, nurses are being attacked in record numbers. This year, nurses have filed 46 workers' compensation claims for attacks and intentional injuries suffered while on duty in hospitals, the analysis found. The number of attacks is on pace to double that of 2012 and 2013. The problem goes beyond Minnesota. A 2011 U.S. Justice Department study found that more than 400,000 nurses and other health care professionals are the victims of violent crimes in the workplace every year.
A nurses union is calling on the nation's top work safety agency to issue mandatory safeguards to protect health workers from Ebola, arguing that recommended guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are ineffective. National Nurses United says CDC's decision to issue recommendations instead of mandatory requirements highlights a "paralysis of government" that leaves hospital workers unprotected from Ebola. The group is turning to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to act and will hold a press conference outside the agency's headquarters Tuesday, urging swift regulatory action.