Histroy of Nursing
...e made enduring and substantial contributions to emergency nursing, which advance the profession of emergency nursing, including the health care system in which emergency nursing is delivered and who provide visionary leadership to the Emergency Nurses Association. The mission of the Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing is to certify nurses who provide emergency services across the health care continuum. Its value Statement is (PRIDE): Professional Commitment to having the best quality examinations; Responsibility to the public in helping to assure Emergency Nursing, its subspecialties, and associated specialties have the appropriate knowledge and critical thinking skills; Integrity is the foundation of our service, dedication to continuous improvement; and Education of BCEN staffs, boards, ECRC members, and item writers to facilitate creating the best exams possible. Inside of the Emergency Nursing profession there is a critical issue that has been looming over the specialty for about eight years. The shortage of nurses affects the environments in which these nurses are supposed to be employed. Patients do not receive optimal care and the few nurses who do work are overly exhausted. Managers and administrators have the responsibility to ensure effective and efficient emergency care delivery systems. Staffing and productivity are critical components of those systems. Safe and effective staffing with qualified professional registered nurses is needed to deliver optimal patient care, achieve an operationally efficient department, and maintain a qualified and satisfied nursing staff. For more than a decade, health care cost containment, institutional restructuring, nursing staff downsizing, and nursing shortages have resulted in a system that threatens the quality and safety of patient care and the quality of work life for nurses. In 1994, the American Nurses Association (ANA) recognized the need for experimental data to drive staffing decisions. Subsequently, the ANA identified nine outcomes that were sensitive to nursing intervention as the basis for new research studies. The outcomes included adverse drug events, patient falls and injuries, nosocomial infections, skin breakdown, pain management, educational information, patient satisfaction with care, nursing job satisfaction, and total nursing care hours provided per patient day. Emergency Care Nurses continue to report their concerns for patient safety in an environment of inadequate numbers of qualified staff, high workloads, mandatory overtime, and fatigue. Many nurses began to report occupational injury, job dissatisfaction, burnout, and departure from the nursing profession. Investigators are now able to support the hypothesis that nurse staffing influences patient outcomes. Patients and families expect timely, efficient, effective, and equitable emergency health care. Hospitals expect to operate in a cost effective manner and provide quality health care to their communities. Nurses expect to contribute to quality patient outcomes, organizational goals, and to feel satisfied with their work, their work environment, and their profession. However, the U.S. health care system is in crisis. Health care economics has been driving the system to a point where the expectations of patients, families, staff, and organizations may no longer be met. Comprehensive short and long-term strategies are critically needed. Nursing organizations and policy makers must continue to value and support nurses, they must assure that an adequate supply of professional nurses is available now and in the future, and that patient and staff safety remains a priority. With the declining amount of staffed nurses the amount of African American nurses is even more dismal. The face of the United States workforce continues to evolve into one of increasing diversity. Projections show that white men comprise only 45 percent of the workforce by the year 2000, while women, people of color and immigrants will account for 80 percent of labor force growth, according to a 1996 report by the Center for Women Policy Studies. However, if one holds a mirror up to the face of Nursing and you will see a different profile, one that continues to be more identical than diverse. As American society becomes ever-more varied, this lack of workforce diversity is potentially harmful to the profession and the population it serves. Consider the results of the March 1996 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses just released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Nursing. The survey shows that nearly 90 percent of the total RN population is white, compared to roughly 72 percent of the total U.S. population. Dr. Lauaranne Sams was a nurse who has made history by demanding amendments within the American Nursing Association, the organization contributed with the expansion of the Nursing profession. She and other concerned Black nurses joined to propose that th...