Patricia Underwood, a professor in GVSU's Kirkhof School of Nursing, was elected to serve a two-year term as the first vice-president of the American Nursing Association (ANA) during its convention last month in Indianapolis.
The ANA is the nation's leading professional organization representing the major health policy, practice, and workplace issues of registered nurses (RNs) in the United States.
As the ANA vice president, Underwood will play a major role in fostering legislation and health policy. I look forward to working with nurses, consumers, and other providers across the country to make quality, accessible, and cost-effective health care a reality for all people, says Underwood.
As president of the Michigan Nurses Association, she was active in the passage of the Health Professionals Recovery Act. She also represented nurses on the Hillman Commission, which was charged with making recommendations about the health facility needs for greater Kent County for the next 20 years.
Underwood was one of 30 nurses from throughout the country invited to meet with Hillary Rodham Clinton and other members of President Clinton's Task Force on Health Care Reform in March of 1993. She returned to the White House the following year to meet with the President to discuss health care reform.
She took a sabbatical in Washington, D.C., during the winter 1999 semester to work on health policy development across federal agencies. She worked with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Care Financing Agency (HCFA) on the reimbursement of nurse practitioners.
Underwood also assumed a leadership role in the development of a national agenda to address violence against women. This was a joint project of the Department of Health and Human Services and Justice under the leadership of Secretary Shalala and Attorney General Reno, says Underwood.
In addition to its work on ethics and standard setting, the ANA will be focusing on patient safety and advocacy including the opposition of mandatory overtime for nurses, which can jeopardize patient safety.
Research has demonstrated that appropriate levels of registered nurse staffing decrease the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections, patient falls, skin breakdown, and length of stay and increases patient satisfaction, explains Underwood. Patient safety and quality care must be a priority over profit making.
The ANA is currently pressing for legislation to require safer systems to reduce needle-stick injuries to nurses as part of its fight for safe workplace environments.
