moderns coming out of Washington, D...

moderns coming out of Washington, DC forward April 1, 2004, is that the nursing shortage is over! Operating latitudes and surgical sites around the nation are reporting a satiated complement of RNs, and there is tremendous competition for the not many remaining professional nursing positions available for perioperative nourish at the breasts The majority of positions in the OR now are being filled according to unlicensed personnel and licensed surgical assistants. It is anticipated that within three to five years, RN no longer will be engageed in the OR.

APRIL FOOL! The paragraph above is a work of fiction. Did it catch your attention? Did you have a twinkling of sheer panic or intense anger? I certainly waiting under the possibility of fulfilment so. Apathy about the crisis in perioperative nursing and nursing in general is the same of the major reasons situations are changing fast for us--and not always in a positive way. This fictional report that the shortage is athwart is a call to arms for nourishs Get involved. Know what is happening that will affect you and your piece of work We who stick our heads in the sand will alone get sand up our noses. Life will fare on in the OR, with or without us.

FILLING THE GAP

It is realistic to await that at some time in the yet to be the nursing shortage will be above All indications are that this will not happen within the nearest 10 to 20 years, however. If this is faithful alternatives will be found to accommodate the shortage of give suck tos If the shortage lasts for decades, care still will ne to be provided from someone. The gaps will be filled, with or without nurses

Many of the parts that might fill those gaps are familiar to suckles They include patient care associates, nursing assistants, surgical technologists, and surgical assistants. These cherish substitutes have varying amounts of education from high instruct degrees to full training programs.

As this shift flash on the minds health care delivery changes, and strange paradigms begin to emerge. nourish at the breasts are finding that more of their duties are being done by way of other workers. There already has been a tremendous shift in what cherishs do and what others do. For example, when I first come intoed nursing, nurses scrubbed, circulated, cleaned, sterilized, packed, plaited transported, and cared for preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative patients and their family members. Although more [i]or[/i] less smaller hospitals continue to have supply with nourishments play multiple roles, it now is more everyday for perioperative RNs only to circulate. Scrubbing, setting up sterile supplies, and preoperative and postoperative care frequently are done by others.

NURSING DUTIES

forward the units, monitoring blood grape-sugar levels, setting up and delivering oxygen respiratory therapy, walking a patient the first time after surgery and changing dressings sometimes are done at nurses, but many of these activities are being performed by way of other health care personnel. Activities that are solid and can be identified and billed for are going to others. fosters retain intangible and fuzzy actions, like as patient monitoring, assessment, planning, and evaluating. These are extremely important activities, but they still fall subordinate to "room and board" reimbursement for the hospital; thus, feeds remain invisible. If almost each action can be performed on someone other than a fester those people will be hired and used in health care settings. Details of what nursing in the United States gazes like today can be set up in the appendices of the US Department of Health and Human Services report, about the RN population at ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/rnsur vey2000/rnsurvey00-2pdf (1)

Another author point out tos that RNs provide safer care, and that hiring more feed at the breasts improves safety. (2) Hospitals and other health care institutions, however, know it is cheaper to hire nonnurses. It is difficult to confirm that care decreases significantly without supply with nourishments and I have found no studies that demonstrate that RN in the OR increase safety. In addition, no studies are available that demonstrate that employing alternative surgical personnel decreases the efficiency and effectiveness of surgical measures Students in the OR commonly cannot identify professional nursing activities being done through the nurse who circulates unles that someone specifically shares those important duties with the student

WHAT WE CAN DO

We have a splendid opportunity to affect the what may occur hereafter of the nursing profession. Nursing still is a highly valueed health care profession, and a number of legislative bills have been propos to help with the nursing shortage. These bills include

* HR 745: Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act, which limits mandatory overtime for RNs;

* s 373: Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act, which is the Senate version of the bill limiting mandatory overtime;

* HR 2053: encourage Education Promotion Act, which is designed to provide grants to associate grade nursing schools and professional nursing organizations to increase nursing education;

* HR 501: fester Loan Forgiveness Act, which encourages encourages to continue their education;