National Nurses United

E ver stop for a moment and consider what makes a nurse a nurse? Why is what registered nurses do called nursing practice? What are the ramifications to nurs- ing if a nurse in Ohio cares remotely for a patient in Oregon? What does it mean for nursing if family mem- bers and unlicensed staff are trained to perform cer- tain functions nurses do? For the 20 RN members of National Nurses United's Joint Nursing Practice Commission, these are questions they ponder and debate daily. Their job within the organization is to moni- tor and think critically about the work nurses do and the forces shap- ing their practice, and furthermore to safeguard nurses' ability and right to provide safe, therapeutic, and effective care for their patients. "They say that healthcare has changed more in the last 30 years than in the last 300 years," said Bernadine "Bunny" Engeldorf, a Minnesota Nurses Association RN member of the JNPC who has worked at Allina Health's United Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. for more than 26 years. And she's not just talking about the actual drugs, treatments, and procedures. Engeldorf noted that health information technology and the rise of corporate healthcare, under which profits are prioritized above patients, both pose dramatic challenges to how nurses have learned to practice nursing and the way in which they would like and know they ought to practice. "I don't think most nurses have much time to think about their practice. Management keeps us too tired and busy," said Dahlia Tayag, an RN at University of California San Diego Medical Center and chair of the JNPC. "We go to work, get paid, and we go home." The commission is determined to change all that and is on a cam- paign to involve all RN members in working collectively through their union to improve and protect nursing practice, whether it's using assignment despite objection forms (ADOs) as a unit, floor, or entire facility to demand appropriate staffing levels or going to their state cap- itals to testify against bills that would allow paramedics or respiratory therapists to replace licensed RNs. They take their representative role very seriously and encourage all nurses to contact them with questions about what their supervisors and facilities are asking them to do. Mem- bers are also planning to help teach continuing education courses, attend professional practice committee meetings in their regions, and reach out to nursing students to better prepare them for the realities of nursing in a 21st century corporate healthcare setting. The JNPC also researches and issues position statements meant to guide nurses on how to interpret current developments in nursing or healthcare. "We need to put the fire back in the hearts of our nurses," said Cokie Giles, an RN at Eastern Maine Medical Center and a CNA/NNOC copresident who acts as the board liaison to the JNPC. NNU's nursing practice and patient advocacy work can be broadly categorized as falling into five major categories: nursing practice research, analysis, and resolution; patient advocacy; continuing educa- tion; competency; and safe patient care. The JNPC is responsible for providing overall direction, promotion, and oversight of this program. At the top of the JNPC's priority list is simply preserving and enforc- ing what nursing practice laws, regulations, and standards nurses around the country currently have in the face of a presidential adminis- tration and corporate deregulation movement that is aggressively seek- ing to eliminate or reduce all kinds of rules and government bodies that keep individual patients safe. At the same time, corporate forces are aiming to make registered nurses interchangeable and, ultimately, 20 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G O C T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 7 Practice What We Preach National Nurses United's Joint Nursing Practice Commission is on a mission to ensure nurses can practice nursing the way they know they should

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