Welcome to the re-launch of the website of the Georgia Nurses Association.  This new website represents GNA’s efforts to move our communications into the 21^st century in a major way. 

GeorgiaNurses.org offers a dynamic resource for our members, RN non-members, those who may be interested in nursing as a career, and health care consumers.  Please navigate our new site and review the important information that we have provided.  We invite you to offer feedback to:  webnotes@georgianurses.org.

The leaders and members of the Georgia Nurses Association are actively engaged in a number of important projects to advance professional nursing practice in our state.  I’d like to mention a few of them to you:

Workforce: Nurse staffing and shortage

Legislation and Public Policy

Recruitment of Strong Candidates into the Profession

Nursing Practice

Georgia Nurse Alert System

Workforce: Nurse Staffing and Shortage

Nurses are telling us that inadequate staffing is a major concern.  The “nursing shortage” is not just about numbers—as the phrase might imply.  It is about adequate and appropriate staffing.  We cannot solely focus on increasing the numbers of nurses without equal efforts to improve the workplace.  In the American Nurses Association’s survey that was completed several months ago, nurses reported that staffing issues were affecting the care that they were able to give their patients.  Recently the GNA Cabinet on Research conducted a modified version of the ANA survey with comparable results.

• 66% of the nurses reported that they have less time for direct patient care

• an increased patient care load was identified by 84% of the respondents

• 79% of the nurses reported that the quality of care had declined in their agency over the past 2 years—only 6% reported that patient care had improved

• inadequate staffing was identified by 86% of nurses

• delays in providing basic care were reported by 72% of the nurses

• an increase in errors was reported by almost half of the nurses (49%)

The report from this survey was published in a prior edition of Georgia Nursing and shared with many health care organizations in our state.  Well, you might say, we knew the problem was bad, but how is GNA addressing the problems associated with inadequate staffing.

We’ve come to understand that many of our staffing problems are related to poor workforce planning in our state and in our nation.  We are very pleased that a number of GNA members were on the Dept of Community Health’s Health Care Workforce Technical Advisory Committee.  The Committee’s report, Code Blue, was the first real attempt to define the nursing shortage in our state.  The Committee recommended specific actions to address the shortage in the areas of planning and policy development, technology and data, education financing, recruitment, retention, and marketing/public information.

Because of this good work, the Georgia Legislature enacted legislation allowing the Dept of Community Health to appoint a permanent Health Care Workforce Advisory Committee to monitor the efficacy of the health care workforce on a continual basis to eliminate the current problem and prevent new ones from emerging.  I was very pleased to be asked to represent registered nursing on this committee.  This appointment is recognition of the hard work that is on-going from our volunteers and staff.

At the GNA convention in October, the House of Delegates passed a position paper entitled: Health Care Workforce Planning and the Recruitment of Foreign-Educated Nurses.   This position statement relates to the failure of human resource planning and problems that cause nurses to leave the profession, advocating for the need to strengthen our nation's workforce planning.  We recognize that health care organizations can no longer afford to go for the “short-term, quick-fix” solutions that have been used in the past.  While short-term measures must be envisioned to deal with the here-and-now, we must emphasize the need for long-range planning as we look to our future.

Many nurses tell us that they are dissatisfied with their work environment.  In the GNA survey of Georgia nurses, 82% reported decreased satisfaction in their work.  One in five nurses reported an increase in workplace violence from patients and their families.  The increase in workload has led to an inability to attend in-service and continuing education programs (64%).  Two-thirds of nurses reported leaving work feeling exhausted and discouraged.  A majority also felt powerless to affect the changes necessary for safe, quality patient care (51%).  Almost 1/3^rd felt frightened for themselves (31%) or their patients (34%).  The nurses in this statewide survey reported that most of them (73%) would actively discourage the nursing profession as a career for their child.  Only 15% would highly recommend nursing as a career.

So how do we address these problems in the workplace?  What can GNA do to affect change?   There are multiple strategies being employed to deal with the work environment. 

Georgia is one of the states that uses dual strategies of collective bargaining labor and workplace advocacy to support nurses in their work environment.  Our three collective bargaining units were strengthened this summer when the United American Nurses, the labor arm of the American Nurses Association affiliated with the AFL-CIO.  This affiliation supports our units against raids from non-nursing unions. 

Our Commission on Workplace Advocacy will be fully constituted this year.  The work of this commission will be to develop a responsive program to assist staff nurses, nurse managers, and employers with the ever-increasing challenges in the practice setting.  The evolution of ANA’s Workplace Advocacy Program will be supportive of the work that is to be done in our state.  This summer the ANA House of Delegates petitioned the Board to “…ensure equitable allocation of resources to support the multiple strategies used to achieve our common goals.” 

GNA is also engaged in several collaborative efforts width other health care stakeholders to deal with workplace issues.  For example, we are engaged in dialogue with the Georgia Hospital Association related to workforce planning and patient safety.  At our October convention, GHA Vice-President and registered nurse, Vi Naylor, addressed the delegates on this issue.

Legislation and Public Policy

We are engaged in dialogue with a number of organizations related to the need to collect accurate and instructive workforce data.  HB 652 was introduced in the Georgia legislature during the 2001 session.  This bill confers onto the Secretary of State’s licensing boards the authority to collect data through the licensure renewal process.  We are working to ensure that the collection of this important data is done in such a way as to protect nurses who are licensed in our state.

You may also be interested in another bill that was introduced in 2001—HB 968.  We are working with a number of organizations, including the Georgia Board of Nursing, to ensure that HB 968 contains language that supports the practice of nurses and the care of patients while allowing for multistate licensure. 

Visit GNA’s Commission on Legislation/Public Policy web page for more information.

 Recruitment of strong candidates into the profession

Many of us in nursing education are very concerned about the declining interest of young men and women in our profession.  Efforts to correct problems in the workplace must go hand-in-hand with the recruitment of strong candidates into our schools of nursing.  We have not always done a good job at conveying what we do and how important our work is.  Now is the time to demonstrate that the care we give our patients makes a difference.  That what we do and how we do it can greatly affect the public’s health.  We must become savvy about image and marketing and message. GNA is currently developing a proposal with Department of Labor funding to market our profession to high school counselors and middle school students.  There is concern that misperception exist regarding the science and math qualifications necessary for the nursing profession.  We want to attract the best and brightest to our profession.

One of our major goals this year was to increase our media efforts.  And our efforts have paid off.  Opportunities have abounded in print, radio, and television media.  We have sought these opportunities and sometimes they have sought us.  We will continue to work to have our message heard around the state and to support our members at the district level as they strive to speak to their citizens at the local level.

State and federal legislators have heard our pleas to bolster our workforce and funds have been increased to support students who choose nursing as a career.  The next step will be to increase funding for registered nurses who choose to return for graduate education.  Faculty numbers in nursing education are also on the decline with some 39% of the states’ nursing faculty indicating that they plan to retire by 2005.  Funds for graduate education and faculty salaries must be increased to ensure an adequate supply of educators.  These efforts are also a part of the committee work of Georgia's Health Care Workforce Advisory Committee.

Nursing Practice & the Georgia Nurse Alert System 

Nursing Practice issues continue to be a major focus for GNA.  Our newly structured Commission on Nursing Practice is working on a number of important practice issues.  GNA also continues its collaborative work with the Georgia Board of Nursing. 

A new opportunity has just been realized by five agencies collaborative in our State (including GNA). A new system has been created to maximize the potential impact that volunteer nurses can bring to disaster relief and emergency response anywhere in the state.  The Georgia Nurse Alert System (GNAS) was created through a partnership among the American Red Cross, Georgia Board of Nursing, Georgia Department of Human Resources, Georgia Nurses Association, and the Georgia Nurses Foundation.  The GNAS is a newly formed network of volunteer nurses who are ready to be part of the disaster/emergency response team for Georgia.  Go to our GNAS web page for more information.

GNA is Focused on the Future 

This generation of young people is “connected”.  They want their information fast and they want it any time.  We are responding to this demand.  GNA’s website is now able to respond to the needs of our members, health care consumers, and those individuals who are interested in nursing as a career. 

While our challenges are very severe and the public should be concerned about who will be there to care for them, many are hard at work on the multiple solutions that it will take to deal with this complex shortage.  Healthcare consumers should ask their institutions about nurse-patient ratios before they are in need of care, efforts to increase funding for recruitment and retention must be supported, and opportunities should be taken to recognize staff nurses for the important work they do.

If you are a health care consumer or someone interested in professional nursing as a career, we hope you find this website beneficial.

To our members, I offer congratulations for your efforts to support the development of our profession.  Let us know about additional information you would like to see included at the website.

And to RN non-members, come join us. With expediential efforts which increased membership provides, we can more effectively focus on the future of nursing in our state.