Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1287383
4 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com September 7–October 5, 2020 ON THE QUICK Nursing & Healthcare News Ongoing PPE Woes ANA survey reveals shortages, frequent reuse I s your facility running short on personal protective equipment (PPE)? If so, you're far from alone. A new ANA survey finds widespread shortages — and wide- spread reuse of PPE intended to be single-use. Shortages Persist Although it's now more than seven months into the pandemic, the problems of inadequate PPE supplies for healthcare workers have not gone away. The latest ANA survey found that 62 percent of nurses nationwide are still experiencing at least occasional shortages of vital protective equipment. This includes N95 respirators, which, along with medical masks, are among the most important tools nurses have for protecting themselves from infection. Although most N95 respirators are intended to be discarded after each use, 68 percent of nurses say their facility requires them to reuse respirators, while 20 percent say reuse is encouraged, though not explicitly required. Nurses who must reuse respirators often do so for days at a time. Fifty-three percent are required to use each N95 respirator for five or more days. More than a quarter of those nurses say they're expected to use a single dispos- able respirator for 15 or more days at a time! "We Must Do Better" It's clear that such practices are making nurses uneasy. Sixty-two percent of respondents say having to reuse N95 respirators makes them feel somewhat or very unsafe. "Reuse and decontamination of single-use PPE as the 'new normal' is unacceptable," says ANA President Ernest Grant, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, who calls on the administration and Congress to step up domestic production of urgently need- ed PPE. "I am deeply distressed that nurses feel unsafe when they are working around the clock to care for patients, edu- cate the public and protect themselves and their families," Grant says. "We must and we can do better." WN Closing in on NP Autonomy A.B.890 passes both houses of the Legislature I n June, Working Nurse reported on A.B.890, a path-to-autonomy bill for California nurse practitioners. That bill now awaits the signature of Gov. Newsom. Small Steps Forward The battle for APRN autonomy in California has resulted in stalemate after stalemate, but independent practice for at least some California NPs now appears tantalizingly close to reality. An amended version of A.B.890, the path- to-autonomy bill the Assembly approved earlier this year, passed the State Senate on August 28. As Working Nurse previously report- ed, this bill would not provide autonomy for all NPs, and its requirements for independent practice would be among the strictest in the nation, including national certification, completion of at least 4,600 hours of "transition to prac- tice" experience and other require- ments to be established by regulation. The bill doesn't cover other APRNs, although S.B.1237, a bill to allow certi- fied nurse midwives to attend low-risk births without supervision, is also on its way to Newsom's desk. The Last Hurdles The amended version of A.B.890 estab- lishes additional parameters for the tran- sition-to-practice requirements, which now include experience "managing a panel of patients, working in a complex healthcare setting, interpersonal com- munication, interpersonal collaboration and team-based care, professionalism, and business management of a practice." However, NPs may be able to count at least some past experience towards these requirements, which wasn't the case with the version that passed the Assembly earlier this year. The current version avoids the com- peting-boards problem of the earlier Assembly version. Instead, it would cre- ate a new nurse practitioner advisory committee, consisting of four NPs, two physicians and one public member, to "advise and make recommendations to" the BRN regarding NP autonomy. This committee would be largely responsible for establishing the require- ments for independent practice, including the transition-to-practice requirements. Even if the governor signs the bill (which the California Medical Association strongly opposes), it's unlikely that any California NPs would be authorized to practice independently before 2023. WN