Okay, I am playing this number in the pick 4 for the remainder of the month.
Attached is part of an Agenda item for the Ohio Nursing Board meeting on Sept. 23rd and 24th. Download 2010fyreportOBN
Its the Compliance and Discipline section of a draft of the FY 2010 Annual Report of the Ohio Nursing Board. I circled a few of the figures on this copy. For a clean copy of the draft go the Board's website.
The majority of complaints involve:
NCLEX Test Applicants 1,568
Miscellaneous 1,166
Practice 854
Drugs/Alcohol 708
Renewal Applicants 446
Criminal 310
Action Taken in Another State/
Jurisdiction 259
Endorsement Applicant 228
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow! Even APRN practice issues increased to 38 complaints. 24 complaints involved psychiatric impairment and 2 involved physical impairment.
NCLEX Test Applicants are leading the pack of course as more and more individuals who apply for licensure have criminal convictions. It used to be several years ago that the majority of complaints involved drugs/alcohol.
Also you can see on page 10, 12% of applicants for licensure by examination (NCLEX applicants) were referred to compliance for review.This is significant and I will bet you $1.99 this number will increase in FY 2011. Again, if you are a nursing student, considering nursing, or graduating from nursing school and you have criminal convictions, you need to speak with a license defense attorney before you submit your app.
On a personal note, I was disappointed when my son decided to change his major from nursing to another healthcare field. However I think he will do much better in healthcare in a non-nursing position. Nurses as frontline workers have it rough in some many facilities and the first response is to term the at-will employed nurse and report to the State Nursing Board. There is little to no due process in facility investigations (unless you are in Texas, you work in a unionized facility, or you work for a government agency) and most times you are left dangling in the wind.
I had a nurse tell me again this week, I don't have my own professional liability insurance policy because my employer said I was covered under its policy. Okay that's true to a certain extent. But let's chew on this:
* If your employer terminates you, reports you to the State Nursing Board, will your beloved employer pay your attorney fees to rep your license before the State Nursing Board? Of course not.
* Does the liability coverage that an employer has for its nurses as staff cover the nurse if a complaint is filed against the nurse with the State Nursing Board? Of course not.
I wouldn't discourage anyone from being a nurse but staff nursing today ain't what it used to be 10 or 20 years ago; this didn't happen to nursing overnight (bullying and violence among nurses, actual and perceived lack of power in the workplace, female-dominated, lack of an entry level to practice, LPN vs. RN, at-will employed, etc.) and it ain't gone change for nursing overnight.
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