October 15, 2025
August 15, 2025
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.
August 21, 2019
WSNA won the Mother Jones Organizational Award on July 26 at the annual Washington State Labor Council convention for our work on rest breaks legislation. Co-recipients were SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and UFCW21.
July 26, 2019
WSNA members from Sacred Heart and Kadlec joined hundreds of outraged nurses, health care workers, state labor leaders, public officials and union activists from across Washington on July 26 to hold a “Rally for Patients Before Profits” at Providence corporate headquarters.
Bargaining team member Matthew McGuire: "This TA gives us a strong contract that I have no reservations recommending."
July 16, 2019
Nurse turnover at SJMC is, for lack of a better word, obscene, and incredibly costly.According to WSNA membership data, SJMC turned over 276 nurses in 2017, and 248 in 2018. This comes out to a turnover rate of 24.2% and 20.9% each year, respectively – rates much higher than national averages.
June 27, 2019
Why nurses demand and deserve better than what St. Joseph Medical Center-Tacoma has offered.
June 19, 2019
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.
June 13, 2019
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.
June 10, 2019
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.
June 6, 2019
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.
June 4, 2019
What is incrementalism? Merriam-Webster defines it as a policy or advocacy of a policy of political or social change by degrees: gradualism. Why do we as nurses need to be aware of incrementalism? Because it’s a double-edged sword and it can cut deep.
June 3, 2019
Minnesota nurses, 4 years after passing a comprehensive workplace violence law and 3 years after obtaining security guards in the ED, are on the picket lines at Children’s, United, Methodist, North Memorial, Healtheast, Fairview, and Abbott-Northwestern hospitals. They’re asking their employers for paid time off after incidents of…
May 31, 2019
As a general matter, the law does not afford employees the right to walk off the job because of unsafe conditions in the workplace. However, a situation may arise in which a nurse is confronted with an immediate choice between not performing an assignment or being subjected to a real risk of serious injury or death arising from a…
May 30, 2019
Each employer has a duty to provide a workplace that is free of known dangers that may harm employees. Like all workers, you have the right to working conditions that are free of known health and safety hazards.
May 28, 2019
Washington Governor Jay Inslee has proclaimed May 6-12 Nurses Week in our state! The theme for this year’s National Nurses Week is 4 Million Reasons to Celebrate—a nod to nurses’ sheer numbers. Here in Washington state, we have more than 100,000 reasons to celebrate!
May 7, 2019
The latest report on the Rest Break settlement with St. Joseph Medical Center - Tacoma
April 30, 2019
The state Department of Labor and Industries on April 11 cited and fined St. Joseph Medical Center Tacoma for safety violations related to a series of attacks on nurses at the hospital. L&I’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health launched an investigation at the request of WSNA after a patient in the psychiatric unit…
April 26, 2019
As nurses across the country unite and advocate for their profession, St. Joseph’s Tacoma nurses are doing the same for themselves and their patients as they fight the good fight for safe staffing – and against incredibly unsafe, management mandated “alternative staffing.”
It’s a situation most nurses can relate to. You’re standing up for your patients, your license, your job – and you’re overruled by a physician. An administrator. A pharmacist. What do you do?
April 12, 2019
As part of the Nursing Now three-year global campaign to improve health by raising the profile and status of nursing worldwide, Nursing Now USA will be launched on April 9, 2019 at the National Press Club with live streaming of the event.
April 2, 2019
It would seem self-evident that nursing professors are important, especially in the day and age of looming nursing shortages. Yet, in our state, nearly every community and technical college with a nursing program has faculty vacancies.
March 22, 2019
After seven months and 12 bargaining sessions, WSNA and St. Joe’s still haven’t reached a contract agreement that ensures safe staffing, safe nurses and safe patients. The registered nurses at St. Joe’s are taking their concerns about nurse staffing and safe patient care to the community they serve.
March 19, 2019
WSNA-represented registered nurses at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma have been in contract negotiations for seven months. WSNA and St. Joe’s have held 12 negotiating sessions to date, the last two with a federal mediator. The 13thsession is scheduled for March 22.
Active in professional nursing activities and associations throughout her career, Betty served on the Washington State Board of Nursing, the Board of Directors of the Washington State Nurses Association, and the Inland Empire Nurses Association. In 1996, Betty was inducted into the Washington State Nurses Hall of Fame.
March 14, 2019
