It was a busy week of floor action at the State Capitol. Wednesday night was the House of Origin cutoff which means that all bills not necessary to implement the budget (NTIB) must be voted out of their original legislative chamber or they would no longer be viable. Bills that were voted out prior to cutoff will have hearings in the opposite chambers until the next policy cutoff on Friday, Feb. 28.
Attend your legislators’ Town Hall meetings and advocate for School Nurse Corps funding and other nursing priorities. It’s a great opportunity to hear directly from your legislators.
The Washington State Nurses Association is committed to supporting nurses and reducing barriers to licensure, especially for military spouses and partners. However, WSNA does not support the NLC.
What a week! WSNA nurses were at the Capitol this week – advocating for nursing priorities and working families. On Thursday, nurses from around the state joined WSNA’s Lobby Day and spoke with their legislators on our priority issues.
Around the state, more than 800 qualified nursing school applicants are turned away each year. The primary reason? Vacant faculty positions mean there are not enough nurse educators to teach the courses, even though programs have available student slots.
To activate nurses, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and Health Care Without Harm launched the Nurses Climate Challenge in May 2018, a national campaign to educate health professionals on climate and health. We are aiming to educate 50,000 health professionals by 2022.
Professional activism is the engagement of skilled and competent professionals utilizing strategic campaigning to achieve a goal. In nursing, it is nurses coming together to assess a need and identify the problem, design and implement a plan to address the issue, evaluate that plan, and repeat until the problem is solved.
As the investigation into 2019 novel coronavirus continues, the Washington State Department of Health is sharing important data points to help the public understand and track the progress and the work being done statewide.
It was a busy week of hearings in Olympia, with WSNA weighing in on many bills. We continued meeting with legislators about our priority issues, including funding for the School Nurse Corps. This week we are highlighting movement on our policy priority related to the need for a more uniform, but also community-based, response system for sexual assaults and making sure that the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners we represent are included in conversations that affect their work.
If you have questions about what is happening in Washington state, how the virus is spread, what to do if you have symptoms, and need a phone number or website for additional information, read more.
2020 Legislative Session Week 1 update The 2020 legislative session kicked off on Monday. It’s the second year of the biennium which means that it is a “short” 60-day session. New House Speaker Laurie Jinkins was sworn in on Monday – she is the first woman and first out lesbian Speaker of House. She is a strong advocate for access to health care, public health, as well as nursing and patient safety issues. Former Speaker Frank Chopp remains a member of the House of Representatives and is now sitting on several committees including House Health Care.
Some say you must earn accolades for your accomplishments, be highly educated or hold a formal title. I disagree with all the above being a requirement to call yourself a leader. I say it matters more what you do.ws
The Future of Nursing report in 2010 gave states a set of goals to aim for as they developed their nursing workforce. Now, almost a decade later, how is the state of Washington measuring up?
It was June 1944, the country was at war, and Marge Batey was graduating from St. Patrick’s Academy in Sidney, Nebraska. The boys from her high school class were heading into the military, off to the battlefields of World War II. Batey was heading to the Sacred Heart School of Nursing in Spokane.
By Ruth Schubert, APR, Director of Marketing and Communications
A friendly reminder from the WSNA-PAC Board that today, Tuesday, November 5, is Election Day – no postage is required to mail your ballot!
Vaping products present a serious public health risk, and we commend the Governor for taking immediate action and a multi-pronged approach.
Attend an event in our Fall Leadership Series. Learn what you can do as a nurse to ensure successful implementation of new laws aimed at preventing workplace violence and protecting overtime and breaks for healthcare professionals.
Naloxone, a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose, will be available at pharmacies throughout Washington after Dr. Kathy Lofy, state health officer, signed a statewide standing order on Aug. 28.
The Department of Health and the Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission are working with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission to help spread the word about impaired driving from prescription and nonprescription drugs.
A friendly reminder from the WSNA-PAC Board that Washington state’s Primary Election is Tuesday, August 6 – no postage is required to mail your ballot! The WSNA-PAC has endorsed candidates in two special election legislative races.
Presenteeism is when someone is physically at work, but not fully engaged or performing. As nurses, we have a lot going on both at work and outside of work, and these things (like our work environment and our own health and well-being) can affect our ability to be fully present at work.
Nurse delegation, unlike general delegation, is a specific process within nursing under the Washington Administrative Codes. It is focused on assigning care tasks to be performed by long-term care workers within certain settings, under the management of a registered nurse, called a nurse delegator.
The Washington Center for Nursing, the state’s nursing workforce center, has released several new reports that give insight into the changing nursing workforce in the state.
Incident reporting is a powerful source of information. When used effectively, it provides a factual description of an adverse event or near miss that supports learning, safety and improved care quality. Most health care entities utilize an electronic incident reporting system to identify opportunities for improvement.
