Redirecting Funding Towards
Programs for Nurses
WSNA is urging the Legislature to include the Washington State Nursing Care Quality
Assurance Commission (NCQAC) and the Washington Health Professional Services (WHPS)
funding packages in the 2010 Supplemental budget. These two programs are critical
to patient safety and maintaining and expanding a qualified nursing workforce in
Washington for years to come.
The Governor included these items in her 2009 supplemental budget released December
9th. This is a positive sign, but we will need to remain vigilant and ensure that
both funding requests are also included in the final budget passed by the Legislature
Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission
The NCQAC protects the public’s health and safety by regulating the competency and
quality of over 95,000 health care workers including registered nurses and advanced
registered nurse practitioners. To continue serving the interests of nurses and
patients in Washington, the NCQAC is seeking funding to enhance two major programs:
- Disciplining unsafe nurses – The NCQAC receives, investigates and
frequently takes legal action on complaints of nursing practice, crimes committed
by nurses and patient harm from nurses. The NCQAC is overwhelmed with cases and
has been forced to prioritize and investigate only the most serious cases. Without
funding for additional staff, the delays in investigations and growing backlog will
leave alleged unsafe nurses to practice with critically ill and trusting patients
because the investigations cannot be completed in a timely manner.
- Issuing nursing licenses – An increasing workload means that licenses
are taking longer to process and issue, causing a delay in the availability and
employment of qualified nurses. WSNA has heard complaints from both nurses and facilities
about the delay in licensure. In addition to being a hindrance to nurses and employers,
this also creates an unnecessary barrier to safe patient care during our growing
nursing shortage. In the past year alone, the number of nursing licenses issued
increased by 30%. The process requires NCQAC staff to determine if applicants meet
Washington’s licensing requirements including graduation from an approved school,
payment of the correct fee, multiple criminal and background checks (including FBI
fingerprint background checks for out of state nurses), and additional investigation
or assessment if there are any discrepancies in the application.
Washington Health Professional Services
The WHPS program provides appropriate and effective treatment for chemical dependency
to over thirty health professions, including nurses, and provides effective, accountable
monitoring of these health care providers when they return to work. While protecting
the public’s health and safety from impaired nurses, the WHPS program also works
to safely return highly skilled and trained practitioners to the workforce through
recovery and ongoing monitoring of dependency issues.
WHPS has been highly successful in creating better outcomes for participants, with
85-90% safely returning to practice. Additional funding will allow WHPS to expand
to meet the growing needs of health practitioners and therefore help ensure patient
safety in Washington.
Because of its outstanding track record, WHPS has been very popular with an increase
in cases referred as an alternative to discipline as well as cases of self referral.
However, due to a lack of capacity and resources, WHPS has had to turn away self
referral cases in the past and will soon have to do so again. Without WHPS intervention,
these nurses may continue to practice with chemical dependency issues, risking the
health and safety of their patients and themselves.
Funding
Because of the essential nature of the services both programs provide and the great
impact on patient safety, nurses, and nursing, WSNA supports redirecting existing
nursing licensure surcharges for the University of Washington Libraries HEAL-WA
program towards these programs.
Currently, a $20 surcharge is added to every registered nurse’s license fee for
the HEAL-WA program at the University of Washington. When this surcharge was added
to the licensure fee in 2007, the purpose was to allow access to the existing UW
online library to support evidence based practice. Rather than expanding the current
UW library, a whole new program was created instead. While we support evidence based
practice, we have learned that many nurses already have alternative sources for
research articles. Only 3% of eligible nurses choose to use the system, yet the
amount of nursing license surcharge fees constitutes 52% of revenue for the program.
WSNA believes that during these hard economic times, this money should be redirected
to programs that more directly support Department of Health regulatory goals for
nursing and nurses in Washington, including the NCQAC and WHPS funding packages.
