Nursing Leadership

In response to the high volume of inquiries related to legislative initiatives that involve nurse staffing, ENA has prepared a "staffing packet" containing material to assist its members in developing collaborative strategies to educate colleagues and legislators specifically on nurse staffing in the ED. ENA opposes mandated staffing ratios or other unilateral methods for determining nurse staffing in the ED. To promote safe and effective patient care, ENA supports evidence-based staffing models that account for variables in patient census, acuity, and length of stay, nursing time for interventions and activities by patient acuity, skill mix, and an adjustment factor for non-patient care time. Contact Kathleen Ream, ENA's Washington Representative at enagov@aol.com or downloading the information directly from ENA's web site at www.ena.org/government.

Document Sharing—Job Descriptions, Policies, Clinical Guidelines—Can You Help?

These are just some of the categories we are looking to enhance for the Document-sharing area of the Members Only section of the ENA Web site. On a daily basis, ENA staff members receive calls asking for anything from a job description for a triage nurse to guidelines for obtaining head circumference on infants and children while in the ED. Can you help?

Take a look at the following list to see if you might already have a form, document, or policy that you could share with your fellow ENA members:

• Job Descriptions—ED or trauma nurse practitioner, ED or trauma case manager, bedflow coordinator, triage nurse, clinical coordinator, psych liaison nurse, trauma coordinator, trauma program manager or trauma registry coordinator.
• Forms—ED flowsheet, trauma flowsheet, resuscitation flowsheet, competency checklist, or orientation checklist.
• Templates—orientation (new graduate, seasoned, second-career), competency development, or clinical ladders.
• Clinical Practice Guidelines—use of external jugular veins for IV access, clearance of cervical spine in trauma patients, head circumference measurements in infants and children.

Do not hesitate to share even if something is not on the list. For instructions on submitting a document to share with your colleagues, go to http://www.ena.org/document_share/Instructions.asp (login will be required), or send an e-mail to webmaster@ena.org if you have any questions.

To see what documents colleagues have already shared, go to http://www.ena.org/document_share/default.asp. Since this is a Members Only benefit, you will be required to login to access this area. After you have logged in, select Document Sharing from the menu at the top of the Members Only home page.