WSNA's annual Lobby Day event in Olympia will be held on Wednesday, January 24, 2024. Registration is required to attend and is now open! This event is for WSNA members only and registration will close by midnight on December 29. If you know you would like to attend WSNA Lobby Day don't wait! Register now to save your place and keep in communication with us as details are formed leading up to this very important day to talk to legislators’ face to face about the issues impacting nurses and labor.

With a short legislative session ahead of just 60 days, a lot will need to be accomplished in that amount of time. WSNA is still developing our legislative agenda for the 2024 session. You can find information on how that agenda is formed here on our website.

Stay tuned for more information on WSNA Lobby Day and the 2024 WSNA legislative agenda over the coming weeks leading up to the start of session on Monday, January 8. For questions, please contact Jessica Hauffe, Political Advocacy Manager, at jhauffe@wsna.org.  

Webinar: Scope of Practice and Delegation Basics
November 8, 2023, 11am-12:15pm |Scope of Practice and Delegation Basics (1.25 hour) 

Given the emerging advancements in health care, nurses need to practice to their full scope of practice. Nursing practice is grounded in Washington’s state statute and rules that provide a framework for competent nursing practice required for professional nurses.

Join The Washington State Nurses Association and The Washington State Board of Nursing for an overview of Delegation and Scope of Practice for Nurses.

Participants will:

• Identify the laws, rules, and factors that impact the nurse’s scope of practice,
• Understand and apply the scope of practice decision tree,
• Learn about the principles and requirements of nursing delegation,
• Understand the nurse’s role and responsibility when directing, supervising, and delegating care.

This case will focus solely on the legal aspects of scope of practice and delegation.  Questions regarding collective bargaining agreements, facility-specific policies, or other labor issues are outside the scope of this presentation.  We encourage those questions and concerns to be directed to the appropriate WSNA Nurse Representative or Organizer.

Once again, we’re encouraging folks to sign up even if they know they can’t make it, as the webinar will be recorded and made available to participants for 30 days post-event for CNE contact hours.  This webinar will be hosted through the WSNA Learning Management System via Zoom, so no separate Zoom link will be sent.

This meeting meets monthly and is co-chaired by Meri Bukovinsky and Kirk Harper.It is mandated by law and described within the collective bargaining agreement. (See 15.3-15.3 in the Collective Bargaining Agreement)

The Staff nurse committee members:
Meri Bukovinsky-CDU, Jamie Woodall-FSED, Anita Dennis-PAU, Melissa Morris- KCHO, Brent Knutzen-CCU, Nikki May-CCU and Tim Davis-PAU

This committee reviews Assignment Despite Objection (ADOs) submissions. Every time a nurse submits, it is sent to WSNA and Nurse Rep. It then is emailed to Kirk Harper, Meri Bukovinsky, and the Unit Manager. It is the responsibility of the manager to have a verbal conversation about the ADO as well as submit a written response to the nurse and the committee. If this is not happening to you, we want to know.

If there is any patient harm or safety concern, this includes staff safety, please file a QRR in addition to an ADO.

The committee to review or in the process of reviewing:
September: 13
October: 11

ADO topics - TR Band training to all units who receive patients post procedure with a one-page hand out, High Risk C-Section scheduling, PACU holding patients, Post- Op joint criteria for staying overnight, SANE trained RNs between ED and FSED total. This is not adequate to ensure a SANE trained RN is available. A 5-day SANE course is scheduled for early December at Kadlec, ASPAN Standards for pediatric population under age 8 reviewed. 2:1 if patient is critical or unstable, otherwise 1:1 with another RN available.

The committee reports current open positions:

September: 100

October: 102

12.3% turnover

Second Half of the Year Survey: Breaks and Meals

1.    Does your unit have a schedule or shift process for break and lunch planning?                                                 
Yes- 66.67% No-33.33% (117 responded)
2.    Does your unit process include scheduling breaks and lunches? (if answered yes to the first question) Yes-58.88% No-41.12% (107 responded)
3.    Does your unit use another process to ensure breaks and lunches? 57 answered and 67 skipped.
4.    Do you feel you can ask for a break or lunch? Yes- 93.28% No-6.72% (119 responded)
5.    Do you feel comfortable clocking no breaks if you did not receive your breaks?         Yes-84.87% No-15.13% (119 responded)
We are happy to see the majority of the RNs responded positively, however, we recognize that you may not be receiving your breaks and lunch as expected. We should uphold a culture that encourages and recognizes breaks and lunches. If this remains an issue, please reach out to an Officer or Laurie Robinson, Nurse representative.

Hospital Staffing Advisory Committee meeting was held Oct. 24

The Hospital Staffing Advisory Committee met this week on Tuesday, October 24. As a reminder, this is the advisory committee formed under the passing of E2SSB 5236 earlier this year.

This month the Hospital Staffing Advisory Committee began discussions around the timeline of the bill requirements, including the uniform staffing plan form to be created as a result of this new law, among other things. Approved meeting minutes will be published at the Hospital Staffing Advisory Committee web page.

The next Hospital Staffing Advisory Committee meeting will be held at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, November 21. Registration is required to attend. Click here to see the list of future meetings and to register to attend any of those meetings. The last 30 minutes of each meeting is reserved for public comment for those who register to attend in advance and wish to add public comment.

This committee meets monthly with the Officers, Kirk Harper, and HR. The many topics that we have been discussing:

• TAVRS- OR RNs who routinely work in the CL for TAVR cases are not considered floating out of cluster. This is considered as the “13^th OR room.”
• Retinal Scans- PAU RN’s who have been trained to perform the scans and who go to the NICU for the scans are not considered floating out of cluster.
• NICU training- Some RNs who have been working in this area have not been able to receive the advanced training while new RNs coming into the unit are receiving. Kyle Lamb HR will look into this issue.
• Precepting Students- At this time we are awaiting an initial meeting for discussion.
• Virtual Nursing- Positions have been posted. RNs with five years of experience will be considered. Equipment will be installed in the homes of the RNs who have secured positions. These RNs will be within the WSNA bargaining unit and considered Surgical Unit RNs.  February 5, 2023, is the “Go Live” date.
• DI patients moving to PACU for discharge. Issues related to inability to access orders.
• SANE training for non- ED RNs- There has been interest in RNs wanting to be SANE trained and being denied because they do not hold a position in the ED or FSED. The contract language does not differentiate on what RN becomes SANE trained. It is imperative that we build a pool of SANE trained RNs to care for the patients in this community and to decrease burnout for the overtaxed currently trained RNs. Jacci Miller HR will be reporting back on this issue.
• AMION-Log in issues to ensure seamless communication. Further review.
• COVID Booster vaccinations- The employer will no longer provide compensation for the booster.
• Education budget- this has been requested per the contract language to review. Kadlec remains on a “travel ban” for education reimbursement. Classes may be reimbursed if taken locally or online.

If you are notified by you manager that you must attend an investigatory meeting, please invoke your Weingarten Rights (On the other side of your badge buddy) You have the right to have your Grievance Officer (Anita Dennis) or your Nurse Representative (Laurie Robinson) to attend. If there is an outcome meeting with any corrective action, a grievance may be filed, it MUST be done so within 14 days.

Currently there are 6 active grievances and 5 that have moved to arbitration. Our Grievance Officer, Anita Dennis, PACU RN attends investigatory meetings and grievance meetings whenever possible. Her work is imperative in seeking out information related to what we are seeing as current problems. Some issues are only in one unit and others are throughout the facility. If we are able to resolve this through discussion at the Conference Committee this alleviates the need for the grievance process.

SANE RNs are being denied further training beyond the initial training and denied the bonus when performing a non-fatal strangulation examination. This grievance was settled at Step 3 with the employer agreeing to pay the SANE bonus when caring for a patient with a NFS examination. The employer was unwilling to pay for any additional training for SANE. We will revisit this during our next contract negotiations.

OR RNs are being told that they must float to Sterile Process Department before they can take Low Census. The SPD is not a nursing unit within the float cluster for the OR RNs, This should be an ask, not a demand. This grievance was withdrawn. The employer may float RNs to other areas to task that are non-nursing.

Rate of Pay/Wage Step placement-Review of service hours and the inability for Per Diem RNs to view lifetime hours. This grievance has moved to arbitration.

Regular Rate of Pay- The CBA defines the RN’s regular rate of pay as base, education, and certification premiums, per diem premium. This is how rates of OT should be calculated, not separate. It makes a difference when OT is calculated! This has been moved to arbitration.

Payroll Discrepancies- This has been filed for All Affected as a result of RNs finding their July 21^st paycheck with large numbers of retro OT and DT that is extremely difficult in determining accuracies. We have asked for a full audit of each RNs pay for the past year. This grievance has been placed in abeyance until we have been able to receive the information for review. The employer held Payroll Workshops for both staff and core leaders.  This information was valuable, and a PDF of the presentation has been attached to review. This grievance will be withdrawn if we do not hear back from the RNs who were impacted by this.

We are still looking for Unit Reps. The training is free. If you are interested in keeping your unit quickly informed sign up for a class today!

If you have questions, contact Ryan Rosenkranz our Nurse Organizer rrosenkranz@wsna.org or 206-867-4627.

We say goodbye to Yaamen Aldaas as he has stepped down from his position as Member at Large. Yaamen worked tirelessly in his role on boarding new RNs. We wish him the very best and we will miss him dearly.

We need two office positions to be filled. Grievance Officer and Member at Large.  This is a great opportunity to help your entire bargaining unit. The Grievance Officer role will be to help process grievances, represent during investigatory meetings, attend Conference and Staffing Committee meetings. The Member at Large role is to help onboard new RNs during new employment orientation,

For any questions or concerns please contact one of the Officers or Nurse Rep

Meri Bukovinsky (CDU) Chair   Cell: 208-739-3439   hart.meri@gmail.com

Jamie Woodall (FSED) Co-Chair Cell: 509-572-1091 jamie.orr237@gmail.com

Vanessa Douglas (ICU) Secretary/Treasurer   Cell: 352-682-0342 vanessa.p.douglas@gmail.com

Anita Dennis (PAU) Grievance Officer   Cell: 509-781-3011 ardennis@rocketmail.com

Zak Gagnon (ICU) Member At Large Cell: 509-551-5264 zak.gagnon@yahoo.com

Laurie Robinson Nurse Representative
Cell: 206-620-4136
lrobinson@wsna.org

If you are not a WSNA member please consider completing a membership application today! Just click on the link!

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