Here is where you can be heard. ANA has all the emails set up and you just fill out the form and it gets sent to your representatives. It's a start.
You can edit your message. I added that nurses need to be protected from administration for expressing concerns about patient safety. I think that is very important. Nurses also need to be protected if they feel it is unsafe.
I did this too. I also sent 2 messages to my local government. I added text there since most of the talk there was of mandated OT which I have never experienced. I tried to post this a few days ago and it didn't post. So lets try again.
I may be new to this nursing post, but I have studied this issue of staffing ratios for more than a decade: academically, administratively, and academically. We do not control our practice domain in nursing, and the staffing ratio situation is just one example.
Part of the problem is our administrative leadership. Many "nurse" executives are members of the AONE (American Organization of Nurse Executives), which is a chapter of the AHA (American Hospital Association). These "leaders" are not hired by us as working nurses, but by administrators who expect an allegiance to their vision of "safe." This nursing leadership has been a dismal falure for most of us who expect them to advocate for truly safe levels.
Please read the words in the ANA position statement on safe staffing. Do you see specific levels? Or are we once again going to rely on what others interpret as safe.
Only 1 group has come out with specific levels, the California Nurses Assoociation and their now national group, the NNOC. Please take the time to visit their web sites and see the difference between vague terminology and specificity. They are now moving nationally, and we nned to support this group, who against all odds, managed to pass and enforce specific levels. They did it in the face of intense political opposition from a popular Republican governor and the AHA/CHA, and by default, the California Organizaiton of Nurse Executives.
As nurses, we need to stop this hat-in-hand political begging and start being very specific about what we see as required to provide the American public with safer facilities.
We also need to learn how to do this as a group. This is more than a tele and med-surg issue. ER nurses have suffered for years during peak times, even as predictable as they are. This is a challenge to our entire profession. Nurses can no longer hide in specialty units or critical care. In fact, these nurses should be our leaders in the fight.
Take the time, read the statements, and support who you can. Letters to your congressman are important, but showing true political power will require us to work together and use our 1 political strength, our numbers.
As long as the ANA is satisfied with having 188,000 members with a potential workforce of 2.7 million, we will continue to avoid the critical self relfection which should be guiding how and to what end these organizations should be focused.
:lol2:Thanks for the site....just sent mine in and do have good thoughts about the poll helping.
Keep getting calls from nurses at my old work place, begging me to come back to help them out. It has been a year now since I worked as a nurse and I can't even imagine going back. My WHOLE life is different now and for once, I am placing myself above others. FEELS GOOD.:lol2:
I may be new to this nursing post, but I have studied this issue of staffing ratios for more than a decade: academically, administratively, and academically. We do not control our practice domain in nursing, and the staffing ratio situation is just one example.
Part of the problem is our administrative leadership. Many "nurse" executives are members of the AONE (American Organization of Nurse Executives), which is a chapter of the AHA (American Hospital Association). These "leaders" are not hired by us as working nurses, but by administrators who expect an allegiance to their vision of "safe." This nursing leadership has been a dismal falure for most of us who expect them to advocate for truly safe levels.
Please read the words in the ANA position statement on safe staffing. Do you see specific levels? Or are we once again going to rely on what others interpret as safe.
Only 1 group has come out with specific levels, the California Nurses Assoociation and their now national group, the NNOC. Please take the time to visit their web sites and see the difference between vague terminology and specificity. They are now moving nationally, and we nned to support this group, who against all odds, managed to pass and enforce specific levels. They did it in the face of intense political opposition from a popular Republican governor and the AHA/CHA, and by default, the California Organizaiton of Nurse Executives.
As nurses, we need to stop this hat-in-hand political begging and start being very specific about what we see as required to provide the American public with safer facilities.
We also need to learn how to do this as a group. This is more than a tele and med-surg issue. ER nurses have suffered for years during peak times, even as predictable as they are. This is a challenge to our entire profession. Nurses can no longer hide in specialty units or critical care. In fact, these nurses should be our leaders in the fight.
Take the time, read the statements, and support who you can. Letters to your congressman are important, but showing true political power will require us to work together and use our 1 political strength, our numbers.
As long as the ANA is satisfied with having 188,000 members with a potential workforce of 2.7 million, we will continue to avoid the critical self relfection which should be guiding how and to what end these organizations should be focused.
I will look at it. Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately it is difficult to know who to trust. At least getting involved in sending letters to the congress tells how we feel. I did not realize California Nurses Association had a national group. They are worth checking out if that's the case because they did change things.
Unfortunately what I have seen to be the biggest problem is that while nurses complain about what we know is going on, for some reason as soon as they are given a resolution or some way to make a change they seem to crawl under a rock. Then you have those that will come along and say nothing is ever going to change don't bother.
I'm not sure what it is about this field but those that follow that path have only themselves to blame for the way it is. For some reason nurses are afraid to stand, afraid to say no or something and they have allowed the changes to continue and continue to get worse. I have watched the hospitals throw more and more at the nurses year after year and month after month and nurses will grumble but do nothing. Once that battle is proven to be won by the hospital they throw more at them and this repeats itself over and over. It seems that the last 7 years especially changes have been so frequent and drastic along with the new revolving door affect that nurses are generally negative and miserable at work and don't even realize it because they have been that way so long.
Many people say that the negativity of others brings people down but I have also seen people say that and not even realize that they themselves are negative, flat or sour.
I think it has gotten to be an unhealthy stress level and it is unsafe. Being unsafe should be enough for nurses to fight and make a stand. After all we are in a field of caring for people and we are taught about legal documentation, safe care, appropriate care, taking care of body, mind and soul but nothing about nursing fits any of our training, morals or values. What does that say for us as humans - as a whole. If we don't stand up to see the change, WHO WILL!
I shake my head every time I see a nurse complain but NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT:no:. I give. I give up on those. They can continue to work in this mess but I can't any more. It's not right. Just because we are nurses does not mean we are super humans and I don't understand why the work has to be so unsafe.
Some of us will continue to fight for this. While others say nothing will change and others crawl under their rock, CALIFORNIA DID IT! That says a lot. That means it can be done. I will stick with the nurses that want to see change and pat myself on the back for doing that. Those that sat back and refused to participate can remember that any change will not be due to any actions on their part. Other people did it for them.
While they crawl under their rocks or insist nothing is ever going to change, I will take my chances and invest in the possibility that something will because I know if none of us do anything there is no hope for change. Doing nothing gets nothing. Letting everyone else do the work means it takes LONGER.
"Some of us will continue to fight for this. While others say nothing will change and others crawl under their rock, CALIFORNIA DID IT! That says a lot. That means it can be done. I will stick with the nurses that want to see change and pat myself on the back for doing that. Those that sat back and refused to participate can remember that any change will not be due to any actions on their part. Other people did it for them.
While they crawl under their rocks or insist nothing is ever going to change, I will take my chances and invest in the possibility that something will because I know if none of us do anything there is no hope for change. Doing nothing gets nothing. Letting everyone else do the work means it takes LONGER."
Dear BrokenRNheart-
Don't give up yet!
Remember, action speaks louder than words. YES, the California group has managed to do what no other nursinng group has done- stand up for specific ratios and get rid of the staffing "double talk". Words like "safe", "appropriate", "acuity based", and "skill balanced" are all administrative deceptions.
The fact of the matter is that specific ratios are needed because history has shown us that administrations, including nursing administrations, are unwilling or incapable of mandating appropriate levels on their own.
Remember, the AONE (American Association of Nurse Executives) is a chapter of the AHA (American Hospital Association).
When Governor Swarzennegger and the California AHA took the CNA and the new law to court, they were unable to produce any evidence that this new law closed hospitals. The AHRQ concluded in 2004 that reducing ratios did not impact hospital profits, although it did incerase operating costs. These costs were offset by increasing patient safety and decreasing length of stays.
Sooner or later, our organizations will realize that they too must come out for specific ratios, mandated by enforceable laws. If they don't, they will become obsolete as the NNOC wave sweeps the country and nurses realize, at long last, that they CAN do something about this issue.
Maybe then we can start dealing with other issues in healthcare reform that are desperately needed.
"When Governor Swarzennegger and the California AHA took the CNA and the new law to court, they were unable to produce any evidence that this new law closed hospitals. The AHRQ concluded in 2004 that reducing ratios did not impact hospital profits, although it did incerase operating costs. These costs were offset by increasing patient safety and decreasing length of stays."
Thanks so much for taking the time to add this information. I have so many things going on that I can't push or focus in this area. I have to heal and find a job and have been doing so many things.
Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do research and find information like you provided. What little bit I did didn't turn up much so I decided to at least use ANA to get this going. Other links weren't acceptable at this forum. It's kinda hard to put so much energy and effort into something like this just to have it ignored by so many nurses.
I think your knowledge is much needed here on this board. If you have more information and better choices, you need to get them posted and see if they get accepted and maybe your topic will earn a sticky.
Like I said, I have spent the past decade or so studying why nursing is ineffective politically. Nursing leadership has detached themselves from the interests of working nurses, otherwise the results of endless satisfaction surveys would not have gone so unheeded.
ANA memebrship is down to 652,000, and most of them belong because it is a condition of state membership. Florida, for example, represents only 4% of the 178,000 nurses in Florida.
Log on to the NNOC web site and join the effort...it cost's nothing to join, and they protect your anonymity. Check out whether your state is being actively recruited by NNOC, I know Florida is. They are also sponsoring staffing legislation for Ohio.
By all means, supoort the ANA staffing initiative. As the NNOC grows, it may force the ANA to abandon the vague terminology and realize that laws are the only thing the hospital industry recognizes.
The ANA has one powerful weapon...the magnet recognition program. If we can control admission to Magnet status to those facilities who recognize the California staffing patterns, we may be able to institute real change.
Like I said, I have spent the past decade or so studying why nursing is ineffective politically. Nursing leadership has detached themselves from the interests of working nurses, otherwise the results of endless satisfaction surveys would not have gone so unheeded.
ANA memebrship is down to 652,000, and most of them belong because it is a condition of state membership. Florida, for example, represents only 4% of the 178,000 nurses in Florida.
Log on to the NNOC web site and join the effort...it cost's nothing to join, and they protect your anonymity. Check out whether your state is being actively recruited by NNOC, I know Florida is. They are also sponsoring staffing legislation for Ohio.
By all means, supoort the ANA staffing initiative. As the NNOC grows, it may force the ANA to abandon the vague terminology and realize that laws are the only thing the hospital industry recognizes.
The ANA has one powerful weapon...the magnet recognition program. If we can control admission to Magnet status to those facilities who recognize the California staffing patterns, we may be able to institute real change.
Good luck
Thanks again.
The Magnet Recognition is a good tool for us. Voting is anonymous - make sure you vote if your hospital is trying to make magnet status. I don't think any hospital that allows these staffing conditions should make magnet. I know of some on the list that I know staff is not that satisfied with but they have some way of getting that vote in for themselves. That will definitely not help our hope to change staffing ratios.
I got my letter back from the House of Reps today.
Just got my annual eval. I was dinged for complaining about staffing when I didn't really have the number of patients I said I had. (Apparently I'm not supposed to be living in reality?) I was also told not to put complaints in writing anymore, because it makes ME look bad. You bet your bippy I'm looking into this link! Thanks!
Now, the way I see it. No one has done anything to change staffing ratios. Even though the ANA's wording might not be 100% of what we are looking for they are the only ones that hit congress at this point.
This site that I started with this link HAS gotten results.
Signatures and letters are working.
I got a letter from a member of congress today and said that he would certianly keep my thoughts in mind should this bill reach the House floor for a vote. I don't feel that I wasted my time. I don't believe that we are never going to see a change. Too many people know it has to change and I know it will.
Now, the way I see it. No one has done anything to change staffing ratios. Even though the ANA's wording might not be 100% of what we are looking for they are the only ones that hit congress at this point.
This site that I started with this link HAS gotten results.
Signatures and letters are working.
I got a letter from a member of congress today and said that he would certianly keep my thoughts in mind should this bill reach the House floor for a vote. I don't feel that I wasted my time. I don't believe that we are never going to see a change. Too many people know it has to change and I know it will.
See, that's the point. Congress doesn't need a new bill, it merely needs to amend the Medicare bill to mandate staffing rates for facilities receiving Medicare reimbursement.
Congressmen and women are great at promising "to look into it", but until the public gets mad, little is ever done.
We need to sell the safety angle (well documented in over 100 studies). Congress recently started to refuse to reimburse these facilities for nosocomial infections, but that is simply not enough. If they REALLY, really, really wanted to improve the IOM results, they could deal with the staffing issue.
See, that's the point. Congress doesn't need a new bill, it merely needs to amend the Medicare bill to mandate staffing rates for facilities receiving Medicare reimbursement.
Congressmen and women are great at promising "to look into it", but until the public gets mad, little is ever done.
We need to sell the safety angle (well documented in over 100 studies). Congress recently started to refuse to reimburse these facilities for nosocomial infections, but that is simply not enough. If they REALLY, really, really wanted to improve the IOM results, they could deal with the staffing issue.
You are definitely an asset to this topic. Stick around. I have too many other things going on that I have to deal with (like make money).
This topic could really use your knowledge and I will stick right by your side.
:lol2:
nrsang97, BSN, RN
2,602 Posts
I did this too. I also sent 2 messages to my local government. I added text there since most of the talk there was of mandated OT which I have never experienced. I tried to post this a few days ago and it didn't post. So lets try again.