Nursing Care in a
Booming
Marketplace |
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The introduction of a new hospital
payment system based on diagnosis-related groups brought a push for cost controls and
a period of layoffs for RNs. Increased acuity,
increased demand, and the cost-effectiveness of RNs brought unprecedented demand and a large
scale nursing shortage. Nurses soundly defeated organized medicine's attempt to create a new
category of caregiver, the registered care technician, to provide nursing care as their "solution" to
the problem.
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Nurses Coalition for Action in Politics
(N-CAP)
Nurses represent a great variety of political viewpoints, and this diversity is a strength. "If nurses will express that diversity by making themselves and
their concerns known to their legislators through participation in partisan politics, then when
nurses unite to support health care concerns they will form a powerful political network...Partisan
political activity is not only good but essential if we are to have a voice in health care policies
that affect us and the patients we care for."
Barbara Curtis, RN, Chairperson, N-CAP, The American Nurse (January
1981), p. 12
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HIV/AIDS Prevention and
Care
The American Nurses Foundation (ANF) joined forces with health professionals throughout the
world to support the research and educational issues presented by the global AIDS
problem.
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The Challenges of Providing
Care
for the Elderly
"There is such a need for gerontological nurses. It is a
fast-growing field. ... I've found a lot of fulfillment in caring for the elderly. There are so many
needs there to be met."
Janet Holt, RN, Assistant Director of Nursing, Maple Knoll Village, Cincinnati, Ohio,
in The American Nurse (April 1989), p.9
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Utilizing Nursing Research
to
Address Health Care Issues
The formal establishment of the National Center for Nursing Research (NCNR) at the National
Institutes of Health in 1986 acknowledged that funding nursing research was an essential part of
NIH's mission.
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Defining Nursing's
Commitment
to Society
From its inception, the ANA was concerned with the ethical commitment of nursing to society.
In the 1980s, with the nation engaging in debates about the health care system, it became of
critical importance that nursing delineate the nature and scope of nursing practice.
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Fair Compensation for Nursing
Care
"There are many unsung heroines among nurses who
have laid down their professional lives for what they believed in... Finally, nurses have
[developed] enough humility to say, above a whisper, that among other problems, nurses [are]
woefully undervalued [as reflected by] their embarrassingly low salaries."
Ann L. Zimmerman, RN, FAAN, First Chairman of the Economic & General Welfare
Commission, and ANA President 1976-1978, in 1988 Address to the New York State Nurses
Association Annual Convention |
Copyright 1996 American Nurses
Association, 600 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20024-2571
All rights reserved. No reproduction without permission of
ANA. |
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