When patients seek health care, nurses are the providers with whom they tend to interact the most – and who therefore often have an outsized impact on their health outcomes. But nurses don't just care for the sick: they are at the forefront of transforming health care delivery, research and policy. The University of New Mexico College of Nursing faculty understands this and has made it the cornerstone of their efforts to educate our state's nursing workforce for more than half a century. This fall, as the college marks the 60th anniversary of enrolling its first class, it is a good time to reflect on its many accomplishments and look to the future to see how nurses will help us adapt to a rapidly changing health care environment.
Nursing programs run by an Education Management Corp. for-profit college face a review by accreditors after an Arizona campus allegedly canceled clinical courses and used veterinary supplies when it ran out of medical equipment. Brown Mackie College will evaluate nursing students at its Tucson location and reteach those deemed deficient at its own expense, under a consent agreement with the Arizona State Board of Nursing. While disputing many of the board's findings, the college agreed to stop enrolling new students in its practical nursing program in Tucson for at least two years.
Nationally, about 10 million more people have health insurance coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act. That means more people seeking medical care — and with a shortage of doctors, another law that went into effect in January is helping with demand. The Nurse Practitioners Modernization Act gives nurse practitioners more independence, with many now able to provide primary care in a private practice without being under a physician's supervision. The new law allows nurse practitioners in New York with over 3,600 hours of clinical practice to practice independently — it removes the requirement for the NP to have a written agreement with a physician, instead highlighting the physician as a consultant.
Most New York hospitals are keeping the public in the dark about whether they have enough nurses to properly care for patients, according to a report by a consumer group. The report by New Yorkers for Patient & Family Empowerment found Syracuse's Upstate University Hospital is the only major hospital in the state that posts nurse-to-patient ratios for its various units on its website. The report says patients and their loved ones need that information because nursing shortages put patients at risk of infections, pneumonia, cardiac arrest, falls, inadequate pain treatment and even death. The group's report recommends all hospitals publish independently audited nurse-to-patient staffing ratios on their websites.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association will be out in full force this week pushing a bill that would add enhanced plans around workplace safety, months after a Boston hospital shooting that left a physician dead. The bill, sponsored by Brockton Democrat Sen. Michael Brady, would require health care providers to partner with unions on a comprehensive workplace violence program. "The bill doesn't just call for training, it calls for (hospitals) to work with nurses and the union involved with the nurses together," said David Schildmeier, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Nurses Association. "They have to work with us to come up with a plan, identify every risk, and get a plan to fix the risks."
Across the country, nondoctor health care professionals?usually nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs)?are turning up in a range of medical settings. We see those so-called advanced practice providers most often in primary care and family medicine practices, but they also work as specialists in hospitals and retail clinics, and more. In rural areas, they may be the only health care providers who are regularly available. Their ranks are growing fast. In the past 10 years, the number of licensed NPs in the U.S. has almost doubled to 205,000. Between 2003 and today, the number of certified PAs grew from about 43,500 to more than 102,000.