About American Nurses Association (ANA): Standards of Practice, National Patient Safety, Nurses Advocate

Professional Nursing organization supports the nursing field by the following ways:

American Nurses Association (ANA) began in 1896 with about twenty nurses attending a convention. The ANA has grown into an organization that advances health care standards for nursing practice. The goal for ANA is to support nurses and improve the nursing profession. Today, ANA represents millions of nurses in the U.S.A and they provide information and many tools to upkeep nurses in there quality in their: practices, policy’s, work environment, advocacy in the workforce (Grand Canyon University (GCU), Chapter 5).

ANA wrote the Standards of Practice, which is used along within ANA to guide safe practices for all nurses along with student nurses. This practice informs nurses about their scope of practice, boundaries of nursing license and what we can and can not do. They also came up with an organization for student nurses: National Student Nurses Association. Nursing students are allowed to unite once they become a student; then they have access to an online community and full access to the ANA website so they can stay up to date in new and continued changes (GCU, Chapter 5).

National Patient safety goals were established to address concerns about patient safety during errors. IOM (Institute of Medicine) conducted a research that confirmed that thousands of people died from medical errors. Due to EBP that was done, the organization was created and put into place to make healthcare safer. Example of this today would be to know your six medication rights. Before giving medication the nurse must know: right patient, route, drug, dose, time and right to refuse. This ensures that patients are receiving correct medication and nurses are being safe at all times. Also, if an error does occur, nurses are mandated to report the error within a system report. By doing this, errors can be tracked and investigated on how the error happened and what can be changed to prevent future errors (GCU, Chapter 5).

Nurses Advocate every day to ensure proper care is being delivered and all needs are being met for patients. According to Dynamics in Nursing, one of the first EPB protocols was found by Dr. Nancy Bergstrom and Barbara Braden. They both came up with Braden scale for pressure Ulcer Risk assessment. Today it’s used every day to score patients on their risk for pressure ulcers. As nurses, we can advocate for their best interests when they are not able to speak up. When nurses are assessing patients, whether it’s at admission or a change in condition, the nurse can actively create a plan to decrease the risk for developing a sore or ulcer. The nurse can advocate that the patient must be on air mattress, have skin protocols in place, turn every two hours, etc. By doing this, nurses are advocating and keeping patients safe and out of harm's way. (GCU, Chapter 5).

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