CNN to feature Nurses

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Media to Feature Nurses During National Nurses Week

5/3/01

During National Nurses Week, CNN will be airing a three-part series on the nursing shortage that will feature an interview with ANA President Mary E. Foley, MS, RN. Part one will air at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. May 7, and at 8 a.m., May 8; part two will air at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. May 8, and at 8 a.m. May 9; and part three will air at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. May 9, and 8 a.m. May 10. All times are eastern time.

http://www.ana.org/news/ananews.htm#media

I am interested in what Mary Foley says and does - this may be a deciding factor for me, the ANA has a great opportunity now...time will tell...>

I hope they dont do what ABC did a few months ago & cut out her entire segement because she was "too" critical of the hospital administrations!

Just in case:

A Message From ANA President

Mary Foley, MS, RN

As we celebrate National Nurses Week 2001 (NNW) May 6-12, the American Nurses Association (ANA) and its constituent member associations (CMAs) salute nurses across the country. This year's theme, Nurses are the True Spirit of Caring, reflects the many ways in which nurses have consistently delivered quality patient care and advocated for their patients despite the challenges of a turbulent health care system. By advocating for nurses, ANA advances its goal of high-quality patient care.

Safety, Staffing Set as Priorities:

A key focus of NNW 2001 is a "call to action" with regard to nurses' working conditions, particularly as they relate to nurse staffing issues and, in turn, affect quality patient care.

That's why, in addition to celebrating nursing's accomplishments this year, ANA is asking nurses across the country to join us in pushing the call button over the nation's burgeoning nurse staffing crisis. For some time now, ANA has been sounding the alarm over inadequate staffing practices and an emerging nursing shortage that is expected to worsen over the next decade as the baby-boom population begins requiring increased nursing care. And, many of those concerns were confirmed with the results this past February of an ANA Staffing Survey designed to measure nurses' perceptions of their working conditions and levels of satisfaction.

Chief among the survey's findings are nurses' concerns that deteriorating working conditions have led to a decline in the quality of nursing care. Specifically, 75 percent of the nurses surveyed feel the quality of nursing care at their facility has declined over the past two years, while 56 percent say the time they have available for patient care has decreased.

In addition, more than 40 percent of the nurses surveyed said they would not feel comfortable having a family member or someone close to them cared for in the facility in which they work. And more than 54 percent of nurse respondents would not recommend their profession to their children or their friends.

In the three months since the ANA Staffing Survey results were released, the ANA has worked closely with members of the media to publicize the impact that poor working conditions are having on the emerging shortage. Through such media outlets as NBC News, Good Morning America, CNN, C-SPAN, the New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and Modern Healthcare, the ANA has ensured that nursing's concerns are heard.

In addition to its publicity efforts, ANA has embarked on a nationwide federal and state legislative agenda, which is pushing for the following state and federal safe staffing protections:

Restrictions on forced overtime, so nurses know they will not be required to work mandatory overtime when they are tired or have outside commitments;

Increased whistleblower protections, so nurses can report unsafe conditions without fear of reprisal;

Mandated collection of workforce and nursing-sensitive quality indicators, so nurses know health care facilities are publicly accountable for the quality – not just the cost – of patient care, and for staffing levels used to deliver that care.

Establishment of patient classification systems to better calculate the appropriate level and mix of nursing staff needed to deliver safe, quality care.

In addition, ANA has been working with members of Congress to come up with ways to attract more young and mid-career people to the profession. And the results of those efforts include the recently introduced Nurse Reinvestment Act and the Nursing Employment and Education Development (NEED) Act, two bills aimed at alleviating a growing shortage of nurses in the United States.

Both bills contain a combination of scholarships, loan repayments and innovative recruitment techniques designed to prompt more young people to choose nursing as a career, as well as encourage existing nurses to increase their levels of education.

But that's not all. During National Nurses Week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) will introduce the Patient Safety Act in the Senate and the House, respectively.

The Patient Safety Act is proposed legislation that focuses on major safety, quality and workforce issues for nurses employed by health care institutions and their patients who received care in those institutions. This bill, when passed, will require health care institutions to make public specified information on staffing levels, mix and patient outcomes.

At a minimum these institutions would have to make public the number of registered nurses providing direct care; numbers of unlicensed personnel utilized to provide direct patient care; the average number of patients per registered nurse providing direct patient care; patient mortality rates; the incidence of adverse patient care incidents; and methods used for determining and adjusting staffing levels and patient care needs.

In addition, health care institutions would have to make public data regarding complaints filed with the state agency, the Health Care Financing Administration or an accrediting agency related to Medicare conditions of participation. The agency would then have to make public the results of nay investigations or finding related to the complaint.

Complementing ANA's efforts in Congress, the United American Nurses (UAN), ANA's labor arm, has launched a Safe Staffing campaign that features NNW rallies across the country. More than 800 nurses have already signed on to "Demand Safe Staffing" through a UAN petition to be shared with policymakers, and UAN National Labor Assembly delegates will make their case for safe staffing to members of Congress during a June 26 UAN Lobby Day. And, ANA will hold another lobby day two days later, on June 28, prior to the ANA House of Delegates meeting.

The bottom line is that quality patient outcomes and a healthy RN workforce -- which are tied to proper staffing and adequate working conditions-- are ultimately more cost-effective. Thus, it pays to pay attention to and address work environment concerns.

To help achieve this goal, ANA is encouraging hospitals to shift their focus from expensive, short-sighted recruitment efforts to meaningful retention strategies.

One such strategy can be found in the American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Nursing Services Recognition Program. Hospitals that have been designated as "magnets" have been found in studies to attract and retain professional nurses who experienced a high degree of professional and personal satisfaction through their practice.

Currently, only 32 hospitals have been awarded "magnet" recognition, but the essential criteria can be used by nurses and administrators to assess their own facilities for improvements.

In the meantime, the ANA will continue to sound the alarm on unsafe staffing practices in the coming year. The goal is to mobilize nurses around the staffing crisis, educate the public, and develop and implement initiatives to address the problem.

Through these various efforts, it is ANA's goal to restore the meaning to the theme of this year's National Nurses Week – to truly put the spirit -- and the nurses – back into caring. We hope, both for the nurses and for the nation's sake, that our efforts are successful.

Membership:

ANA has honed its focus around five core issues to better meet nurses' and nursing's needs. The core issues are:

Appropriate Staffing,

Workplace Rights,

Workplace Health and Safety,

Continued Competence,

Patient Safety/Advocacy.

As ANA continues its advocacy on behalf of nurses, we need your voice. As a constituent member association member, you are a part of the ANA, the largest national network of registered nurses. And with your voice, we add strength to our message, as well as to our numbers, as we work in collaboration with other organizations that have joined nursing as partners. So, we do hope you will help us in our quest to bring nursing's collective voice together, as a call to the profession, and as we take these issues to the nation.

Conclusion:

NNW is the perfect time for us not only to reflect upon our accomplishments and our goals, but also to put forth our ambitious crusade on behalf of better staffing and working conditions.

As we celebrate our profession and recognize our colleagues, I would like to extend my appreciation for your commitment to the true spirit of nursing and to improving the profession as a whole. Let's recommit to work together.

Mary Foley, RN

President

American Nurses Association http://www.ana.org/pressrel/nnw/message.htm

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sounds like shes speaking for all nurses here. Doesnt every nurse agree that these are our issues and we are all affected by them? I, for one, am very excited to be a part of this.

Specializes in ER, PACU, OR.

JT, LevelII, etc.

While I will be the 1st to say I don't always agree with wildtime. I do so happen to agre with his stand on the ANA. It is false publicity to say they are standing up for ALL nurses. I think thats terrible. I think that in one way, fortunately it brings the shortage and working conditions to light in the public eye. On the other hand, the ANA, is about NP's and advanced npractice nurses. How much of the public will acually take their time to see who and what the ANA satnds for? Where is their focus? IMO thats why they have only 7% memebrship. I just choose not to bad mouth people, and/or calim to be out to destroy anything (which reading briefly I didnt see wildtime actually say that....I could be wrong). One thing for sure????? Level II........FOS??? Give me a break, anybody that resorts to name calling and garbage like that, is no better than anyone else in here. GOD I HATE THAT EVERYBODY FEELS THE NEED TO ATTACK OTHERS BASED ON THEIR OPINIONS AND/OR POSTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GROW UP ALL OF YOU

OUT!!!!!

Rick :)

Rick,

I'd like to pick apart a few comments you made. Too bad this thread became way off track, but so be it.

Your quote:. "On the other hand, the ANA, is about NP's and advanced npractice nurses. How much of the public will acually take their time to see who and what the ANA satnds for? Where is their focus? "

My question to you is, how informed you are in the past few years, with ANA, to say it is about NP's and advanced practice? Up-to-date ANA members (remember, the majority are staff nurses) have a tiring time with this because it is soooo outdated, sooo inaccurate. Please take the time to visit the site.

Your second comment "How much of the public.... I didn't understand this. By public did you mean laymen public or nurse public. If you meant laymen, well, it's my professional organization. While I'd like to inform the public, it's not on the top of my list to do so, in order to join my professional organization. If you meant laymen nurse, well, that's sad isn't it? They aren't taking the time to know who we are.

OK, if ANA is not the national voice for nursing, then WHO is?

WHERE are all these wonderful majority 93% of nurses and WHY are they silent to the media?

Sure, you may have wishful wet dreams over who you wish it might be, could be, etc., but the reality is-it IS the ANA.

Name another nursing organization [aside from the UAN or ANA affiliate] that has made NATIONAL mainstream news, national interviews, or has a member serving on a NATIONAL or federal committee, or cabinet, etc.

Sure, there are organizations concerned about their own states, getting some press in their towns, playing big fish in a little pond. But when it comes to a national voice, they are but a whisper.

How dare you chastise CNN for listening to the needs of those 7% of the ANA members? Why is that 7% any less than 1% or 100 when it comes to the needs of our profession?

Who are you to silence anyone?

Our needs, as nurses, and who we choose to represent us are none of your business. If you have a problem with the ANA or want to mobilize the other 93% God speed to you.

but back off trying to destroy the work some of us ARE doing.

You won't hear the ANA only protect and create legislation for our members. They are working for it for ALL nurses. It is easy to talk a big talk from the anonymous security of behind a computer screen. My bet is you are the silent type face to face.

Specializes in ER, PACU, OR.

Hmmmmmmmmm........ well all I did is state my point and opinion from my view. I hope seasonedRN last post was not meant to come my way. I didnt go out and attack anybody else.....thats all I'll say until I kow who her post was directed at.

Nat, When I 1st finished school in 1996, the ANA was going for changes that basically discriminated against LPN's, and NON BSN/MSN nurses. Ever since then I have been non ANA. Even to the point of not wanting to even see if things chaanged. However, I will go check out their site since apparently I am missing something.......thanks for the info.

Rick :)

Rick, if you did a search on Wilds posts, youd probably lose count of the number of times he told me he has to "destroy" me and my organziation just to "silence" my opinion. Repeatedly, he has said that the opinion of nurses here - who are up-to-date & in the know & experiencing daily the work of the ANA for their benefit - is not worth hearing. Repeatedly he has said that our opinion MUST be silenced & we MUST yield our organization to the other 93% of nurses who demand that we do so. (???????)

The thing is I dont see anybody banging down our door demanding we hand over the keys! Never heard any such demand. We have 54 constituents, only 2 (& not the entire associations either - just their labor people) have decided to leave and persue another personal course. That leaves more than 50 other associations & the non-labor part of these 2, that choose to remain together. So What majority demand to yield is speaking of? I dont know.

The other 93% of nurses in this country arent demanding anything either. They havent moved yet to do ANYTHING, much less demand to take over our organization. But the 6-7% of the nations nurses who are in that organization are doing a damn good job getting out there & getting results. Just take a glance at the small sample of press releases that have been posted on this BB.

We (ANA staff nurse members) are all over the place out there & having an effect & accomplishing our goals of raising public awareness & achieving legislation that advances the agenda of nurses, including for direct-care nurses, and we also are improving our own situations at the local levels.....

Have you seen ANY news articles in the past yr or 2 about nurses workplace issues? Did you just miss the ones where the ANA is out there in the forefront speaking for direct-care nurses everywhere who are affected by the cost-cutting profit-driven management practices we face daily? Do you have any idea at all of all the work that the ANA and ANA nurses in states across the country are doing on that topic? Or do you just choose to continue the same old criticisms without bothering to update you info & knowledge on the topic.

Its annoying that people who have no idea what we are about, have no clue that 3 years ago, a new more responsive leadership was installed at the ANA BECAUSE of the demands of staff RNs, & instead of updating themselves on all that we've been knocking ourselves out doing, those people just keep parroting the old mantra - "theyre only about NPs".

Well that old song is all used up & no longer accurate. Just read some of the stuff we've posted links to & you will have to admit that too. Its so obvious that with all the info out there & all the sources & links posted, people are not availing themselves of any of it. Its obvious because there is no way they can read all that is going on in the ANA for workplace conditions, etc, & STILL say that the ANA is ignoring the direct-care RN. sighhhhhh.....

And for the record, I do not care to belong to an organzaiton that only recognizes ONE aspect of nursing. As a bedside nurse, I do NOT want my organization to ONLY be concerned with bedside issues. Some day I may be an NP & what happens then, if all the concern has been ONLY for the bedside nurse? Nor is it fair to focus only on advanced practice... & thats why the ANA is NOT focusing oNLY on one group of members.

Nurses need to remain together as nurses & NOT splinter & divide according to title. Thats what specialty organziations are for. The national professional organzaitation is for ALL nurses. NPs, CRNAs, Nurse Educators, etc are professional nurses too & they deserve their issues be addressed as well as the issues of bedside nurses.... including salary, scope of practice, 3rd party reimbursements, etc.

Not only is there a shortage of bedside nurses, there is also a shortage of nurse educators. Are we not to care about that because we dont have MSNs & we work at the bedside??? I dont think so. There is a shortage of nursing instructors because their salaries are stagnanted, for one.

If there are no nursing instructors, nursing programs cant be expanded to increase the number of students becoming nurses. If nursing programs cant be expanded, we cant recruit more students to help alleviate the shortage because there will be no seats for them. If we cant increase the number of people becoming nurses, the bedside nurses who are there will have too many pts & be working too many hrs to fill the gap (continued short staffing & mandadtory OT!)

We are all related, we are all connected. We need to all be concerned about each others issues. The ANA is not JUST for NPS & it shouldnt be JUST for direct-care nurses either. And it isnt. Its accomplishing a lot for both.

I wish all the nay-sayers would just educate themselves a little before condemning based on past history & ignoring the fact that great effort has been made in the past 3 yrs to correct mistakes of the past.

A national professional nurses association MUST serve ALL nurses & can do that very well. The ANA/UAN is proving that.

"It is false publicity to say they are standing up for ALL nurses... the ANA, is about NP's and advanced npractice nurses."

when the ANA is out there in public & on Capitol Hill talking about how "profits before pt care" mentalities have caused a nursing shortage & how mandatory OT is detrimental to us & pts, & how short-staffing kills, & are demanding employers & Congress work with nurses to reach the solutions, are they speaking only for their members? No. The results of these management practices affect us all the same -ANA member & non-ANA member. So the ANA IS speaking for every nurse who holds a license & is put into these situations. Whether you pay them or not.

You are not a member & just admitted that you havent updated yourself on anything about this organziation since 1996 - yet you make such definitive statements as above as though you "know" first hand that it is "true". But you have direct-care RN members RIGHT HERE, who ARE updated with the latest info because, as members, they DO experience it first hand, & they are telling you that your statements are incorrect - based on what they KNOW & EXPERIENCE as staff nurse MEMBERS. And They should know better than you what their own organziation is doing.

If bedside RNs who are ANA members are telling you that they forced a change in the ANA leadership 3 yrs ago & since then, the organization has become much more responsive to our needs & we are satisfied with the course it is taking, how can you, as an outsider, dispute that,ignore it, negate it, & contradict it?

or tell us we are wrong?

lol

Hi. Tell you what. I'm going to watch the series and decide for myself whether it's about the ANA or the nursing shortage. In fact, I think I will tape it. I'd just assume to come back to this bb and debate or discuss the merits of the presentations afterwards.

level2trauma,

I won't be watching CNN, because ANA doesnt acknowledge me. I'm a LPN. How is that not discrimination?

I agree with WildTime. Criticizing the ANA makes someone FOS????

Maybe if the public saw the ANA for what it really was the Nsg profession could finally be furthered.

Originally posted by Level2Trauma:

People are getting sick of you Wildtime; take a vacation, give your hands a rest. You never cease to amaze me. If you worked as assidiously to improve nursing as you do to criticize the ANA and it's members, the nursing profession would be cured. However, this is not going to happen because you are full of yourself; and you are also FOS!!! Not being rude or personal, just being truthful!!! :rolleyes:

The ANA is NOT the national voice of all nurses whis is the point. The ANA is the voice of their membership, they most certainly do not speak for me or many nurses that I know. The point is that the non-nursing public is being told by Mary Foley, at every available opportunity, that she speaks for ALL nurses which is a blatant non-truth.

Originally posted by SeasonedRN:

OK, if ANA is not the national voice for nursing, then WHO is?

WHERE are all these wonderful majority 93% of nurses and WHY are they silent to the media?

Sure, you may have wishful wet dreams over who you wish it might be, could be, etc., but the reality is-it IS the ANA.

Name another nursing organization [aside from the UAN or ANA affiliate] that has made NATIONAL mainstream news, national interviews, or has a member serving on a NATIONAL or federal committee, or cabinet, etc.

Sure, there are organizations concerned about their own states, getting some press in their towns, playing big fish in a little pond. But when it comes to a national voice, they are but a whisper.

How dare you chastise CNN for listening to the needs of those 7% of the ANA members? Why is that 7% any less than 1% or 100 when it comes to the needs of our profession?

Who are you to silence anyone?

Our needs, as nurses, and who we choose to represent us are none of your business. If you have a problem with the ANA or want to mobilize the other 93% God speed to you.

but back off trying to destroy the work some of us ARE doing.

You won't hear the ANA only protect and create legislation for our members. They are working for it for ALL nurses. It is easy to talk a big talk from the anonymous security of behind a computer screen. My bet is you are the silent type face to face.

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