COLUMBUS, Ohio — Like the rest of the nation, Ohio needs more nurses.
But solving the problem isn’t as easy as boosting hiring in the nation’s hospitals and medical practices. The real hurdle is a lack of nurse educators. Last year, 50,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing programs due to insufficient amount of faculty, classroom space and other related factors, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
To help alleviate the problem, Paula Anderson, new president of the 8,800-member Ohio Nurses Association, says her organization has thrown its weight behind federal legislation that would provide grants to nursing schools to go toward increasing enrollments in doctoral programs — essentially educating the educators.
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A 40-year nursing veteran, Anderson is a staff nurse at The Ohio State University Ross Heart Hospital. Below are excerpts from an interview in which Anderson discussed the group’s legislative priorities and how better utilizing nurses could help reduce the nation’s health costs.
Q: What legislation in Columbus is the single-highest priority for ONA right now?
A: The ONA is currently working on a legislative draft that if passed would protect all nurses from violence in the workplace. We are currently reaching out to members to ensure that the legislation covers all potential workplace scenarios in which nurses are engaged. If you listen to the news, you hear about nurses being attacked by patients, especially in the emergency room.
Q: Given the projected national nursing shortage, what does ONA plan to do to help reverse that trend?
A: One thing we are doing is at the national level, we are supporting the American Nursing Association in their pursuit of legislation that provides for nursing educators. It would be like a nursing grant. One problem with the nursing shortage is that we don’t have enough educators. We have a waiting list of people wanting to get into nursing schools but are unable due to a lack of nursing educators. [The legislation provides that] if you go to nursing school, the federal government would pay for it as long as you guarantee you’d be a nursing instructor for a certain number of years.
Q: Why do you think it’s important that advanced practice nurses be allowed to prescribe schedule II controlled substances (addictive drugs like oxycodone and morphine)?
A: A lot of advanced practice nurses are involved with cancer patients or other types of terminally ill patients who are on frequent pain medication and they see their nurses more than the doctor. Advanced practice nurses should be able to prescribe pain medication to them so they don’t have to suffer while they wait to see their doctor.
Q: What’s the most important role that nurses can play in lowering health care costs?
A: One of the important things in reforming health care is that we recognize the role of advanced practice nurses in delivering care to patients. I think giving them a greater role would lower some health costs. One of the problems with health care in the country is we don’t have enough family doctors in rural areas and I think the government is missing a big opportunity if we don’t take advantage of advanced practice nurses who’d be able to help out with rural patients. They could be the ones to first see a patient, do an assessment and tentative diagnosis, then consult with a doctor.