By including this important pro-active provision in the final standard, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) responded to the comments of ANA, other unions and professional associations who insisted that an OSHA Ergonomics Standard could only be fully effective if all employees have basic information about MSDs and how and why to report them promptly.

1/18/01
Although the arrest rates for violent crimes by youths have dropped substantially in recent years, the epidemic of youth violence in the United States continues, according to a report released Jan. 17 by Surgeon General David Satcher. The report further addresses the existence of programs that are highly effective at heading off serious violent behavior and eliminating major risk factors for violence.

Successful youth violence prevention programs target specific populations of young people as defined by risk and life experience, build individual skills and competencies, include parent effectiveness training and encourage changes in type and level of involvement in peer groups, according to a press release from the Surgeon General's office.

In addition to identifying 27 specific intervention programs, Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General debunks myths about violence and violent youth, such as "most future offenders can be identified in early childhood."

1/8/01
A front-page article in the Jan. 7, 2001, edition of The Washington Post focused on a little-known aspect of the nurse staffing crisis: the trend of patients bringing their own private nursing assistants with them when they go into the hospital. The article, by staff writer Abigail Trafford, titled "When the Hospital Staff Isn't Enough," notes, "It has come to this: Bring your own nurse. Even in the best hospitals, patients and their families are turning to private nursing help to supplement care from staffs that are often short-handed and over-worked." Private certified nursing assistants, or "sitters," as they are often called, are being used more and more to supplement nursing care, Trafford writes, "to tend to the more personal needs of patients, and provide some of the TLC services of yesteryear."

The ANA worked closely with the reporter on the article. Nurses have traditionally been the "safety sentinels" for hospitals, ANA President Mary Foley, MS, RN, is quoted as saying. But, she adds, "Don't assume that everything is going to be taken care of." The U.S. health care system, with its advanced technologies, "will probably cure you, but it can't protect you," she adds, implying that adequate nursing staffing is still needed.

As a follow-up, ANA's labor arm, the United American Nurses (UAN), is sending a letter to The Post detailing its efforts to solve the nurse staffing crisis through its upcoming "Safe Staffing" campaign.

1/5/01
Recent media coverage of medical errors has caused the public to consider the problem a leading measure of health care quality, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ).

The results of the national survey involving over 2,000 adults reveal that people consider the potential for medical mistakes to be more worrisome than the prospect of airplane mishaps. A majority of those surveyed (71%) also say that medical-error and malpractice information would be helpful in evaluating and selecting health care providers.

In addition, the survey found that most people rely on information from persons they know, including health care providers, rather than on standardized quality measures. Also, although most Americans get their health coverage through their employers, 60 percent of persons surveyed do not view the workplace as a trusted source of information regarding the quality of providers. And, even fewer respondents indicated they have used the Internet to access such information.

Medical errors came to the public's attention last year following a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which revealed that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year from health care errors. The report generated an onslaught of media coverage and prompted President Clinton to call for immediate federal action. The report, "To Err is Human," also has enabled the ANA to reiterate its concerns about the effect of inappropriate nurse staffing on patient care.

For details regarding the "National Survey on Americans as Health Care Consumers: An Update on the Role of Quality Information," visit the Kaiser Family Foundation Web site at www.kff.org/publicopinion. For a printed copy of the survey, call 1-800-656-4533 and ask for publication #3093.

Additional information regarding medical errors is summarized in a report released Dec. 13 by U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP). The USP report summarizes the data of 6,224 medication error records from 56 facilities, including community, government and teaching hospitals in 1999. Titled, the "Summary of 1999 Information Submitted to MedMARx: A National Database for Hospital Medication Error Reporting," the report is available at USP's web site, www.usp.org/medmark, in PDF format.

According to the USP report, omission errors, improper dose/quantity and unauthorized drug errors were the three most frequently reported types of errors. The primary contributing factors cited were distractions and workload increases. The report also noted that in 32 percent of the documented incidences in which an action was taken, the person or persons involved were not informed of the medication error event.

1/3/01
ANA staff and President Mary Foley, MS, RN, provided information to CBS on a segment regarding the nursing shortage which aired Dec. 28, 2000 on the CBS Evening News. Foley was taped for the segment; however, her clip was not used in the piece that was aired. Even though the segment brought national attention to the crisis of the impeding nursing shortage, it failed to look at one of the real problems which is contributing to this crisis - working conditions.

During Foley’s interview with CBS, she emphasized that nurses are being forced to work mandatory overtime, several hospitals have been charged with unsafe staffing practices and nurses are required to manage higher patient workloads even when patient acuity is rising. Unfortunately, none of this was mentioned in the segment. Though we applaud CBS for bringing national attention to the nursing shortage, we are disappointed that the overall message of improving the working conditions of nurses in order to recruit and retain RNs has been ignored. A written version of the story that aired can be viewed on the CBS website at http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,260229-412,00.shtml.

1/3/01
The 2001 ANA Federal Appointments Project is a coordinated effort to ensure that qualified nurses are appointed to posts at all levels and in all departments of a new Administration. The project is a labor-intensive effort to gather and screen resumes of qualified nurses, and to actively promote appointments within the Administration. The 2001 ANA Federal Appointments Project has been active in every presidential election year since 1988. ANA will work with the National Council of Women's Organizations, a nonpartisan umbrella organization of more than 100 national women's groups, on this project.

The U.S. government encompasses fourteen departments, 73 independent agencies, and countless boards, commissions and advisory panels. Each of these entities is staffed by the Federal civil service along with political appointees named by the President, department or agency head, and others in high-level posts. There are a variety of types of full-time political appointments. In addition to full-time posts, there are numerous opportunities for appointment to part-time boards and advisory panels. The President appoints members of some of these boards, while other boards are filled by department or agency heads. At the Department of Health and Human Services alone there are 342 committees, with a total of 6,006 members. ANA is undertaking a nationwide search for qualified, politically active nurses to recommend for more than 1,400 full time Federal, policymaking posts and the almost ten-thousand part-time commission positions.

In general, full-time appointments are filled by members of the President's party. Occasionally a President will nominate a prominent expert of the opposing party for a full-time slot. Usually, however, members of the opposing party must limit their expectations to appointment to boards and commissions. Some of these boards are required by law to be bipartisan, with each chair slated for a particular party. Technical and scientific advisory panels are often filled by individuals with expertise in a narrow specialty, with only slight regard to political affiliations.

ANA encourages nurses to participate in the political process, and invites you to think about and submit names of nurses who would be qualified for a presidential appointment. Please contact Sheila M. Roit, MPP, RN (sroit@ana.org) or call 1-202-651-7090 to have a packet of information on the 2001 Federal Appointments Project sent to you.