Blog
Jan 26, 2010
By Susan C. Reinhard, PhD, RN, FAAN and Brenda L. Cleary, PhD, RN, FAAN
Many of you are aware of the new Gallup survey data that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently released . For us, the findings of “Nursing Leadership from Bedside to Boardroom: Opinion Leaders’ Perceptions,” while not entirely unexpected, were a call to action.
CCNA is the consumer voice for nursing. As such, we know that better health care and health policy requires the contribution and leadership of nurses. As RWJF President and CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey recently wrote, nurses “are uniquely positioned to help reduce medical errors, increase access to health care, manage and improve care coordination, identify ways to contain costs, and much more.”
The RWJF/Gallup survey demonstrates that many in positions of leadership and influence do NOT perceive nurses are visible leaders in health care—and that means that we have a lot of work to do. Moreover, survey respondents indicated that nurses have little to no influence over increasing access to care. This is particularly troubling because, in fact, nurses are well-positioned to be leaders in creating effective policy to increase access to health care and to provide primary care for millions of Americans, particularly those in rural areas, with limited access.
Federal and state policies, as well as payor reimbursement policies currently restrict the care many nurses can provide, thereby limiting consumer access to care by qualified, highly skilled professionals. Americans need access to these nurses, who must, as Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell said at the event yesterday, be “free to do what they've been trained to do."
Nurses and consumers must work together to simultaneously address the systemic challenges in nursing education and capacity while demonstrating the incredible value of nursing to patients, hospital systems and communities—not just to those who we serve in direct patient care , but to those in the boardroom and in government as well. Part of the call to action rests on the shoulders of the health care consumer to demand access to quality health care and that means supporting policies that promote education and retention of highly-skilled nurses in America, while diminishing practice restrictions.
Susan C. Reinhard is Senior Vice President, AARP Public Policy Institute and CCNA Chief Strategist
Brenda L. Cleary is Director, Center to Champion Nursing in America
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Jan 25, 2010
By Jim Walker, CRNA, DNP, President, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists
After 16 years as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), I’m still caught off guard whenever a patient or colleague says to me, “I didn’t know nurses can give anesthesia. Is that something new?” But I’ve come to recognize these awkward moments as golden opportunities to educate the public about the important contributions of nurse anesthetists.
There are probably a lot of reasons why many people, even some in health care, don’t have a good handle on nurse anesthetists. It’s certainly not for lack of trying to spread the word by the nation’s 40,000+ CRNAs and student nurse anesthetists, as well as the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. More likely it has to do with the fact that much of our quality time with our patients is spent preparing them for their procedure—while they are asleep or semi-conscious—and while they’re recovering from the procedure. Sometimes the message “I’m a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist and I’ll be giving you your anesthesia today” registers, and sometimes patients are just too distracted to care. However, what patients do care about is that we will keep them safe, comfortable, and pain-free, and that we will stay with them throughout their procedure. That message always resonates.
Another reason many people aren’t clear about the role of nurse anesthetists is the misperception that giving anesthesia is the province of physicians. Actually, nurse anesthetists were the first anesthesia professionals, dating back to the Civil War. Today we are the hands-on providers of more than 32 million anesthetics each year, providing anesthesia in every setting and for every type of case in which anesthesia is required. The operative word here (no pun intended) is “hands-on”; more often than not it’s a CRNA who actually delivers the anesthesia and stays with and monitors the patient. We (CRNAs) are great at what we do because we do a lot of it.
We have the incredible responsibility of providing vigilant one-to-one patient care daily and protecting and advocating for patients during their most vulnerable moments… and after which, we make sure they are delivered safely into the capable hands of other health care professionals in the recovery room. It is making this daily "routine" patient-centered that makes being a CRNA so intensely satisfying on a personal and professional level.
During the week of January 24-30, nurse anesthetists across the country will celebrate their profession and anesthesia patient safety during the 11th annual National Nurse Anesthetists Week. You can learn more about us at www.aana.com.
Jan 8, 2010
Happy New Year!
Thank you for your continued interest in CCNA, and especially in our work to ensure that nursing leaders across the country can learn from one another as we embark on this next phase of health reform. In an effort to ensure that as many people as possible know about innovations designed to increase capacity in nursing education, we have launched a high-profile series of articles in the American Journal of Nursing (AJN).
In this unprecedented seven-part series, AJN will publish summaries from two national nursing summits held in 2008-2009, as well as an article on the ongoing technical assistance (TA) program that CCNA is leading in 30 states across the nation. As you may know, our TA program is focused on strengthening state-level solutions to nursing education that can help increase the number of highly-qualified registered nurses nationally.
I encourage you to read the first article in the series, “Forging Partnerships to Expand Nursing Education Capacity,” to get a more in-depth view of the lessons learned from the multi-stakeholder, national meetings and to stay tuned for the upcoming articles that will be published in AJN through July. The Web site is www.AJNonline.com.
The second article in the series, to be published in February, will describe the ongoing technical assistance provided by CCNA. From March through July, individual state teams will be profiled to help shine an even brighter light on the incredible work being done at the state level including California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Oregon. These state teams, among others, have been working to inform state policy related to nursing education and to implement innovative education redesign initiatives; they are seeing real results from their efforts to bring more nurses into the workforce and to meet the ever-increasing demand from consumers for high-quality health care. Our hope is that the success these states are experiencing can be replicated in other states nationwide.
Here’s to our collective progress and success and a healthier 2010 for all Americans!
