Silverton - March 14, 2018

We are incredibly disappointed to report that the Legacy Administration has proposed getting rid of our Professional Nursing Care Council (PNCC) that has served Silverton Hospital for many years. ONA simply cannot accept that proposal. The PNCC is a unique space where one nurse representative from each department meet every month to address issues facing nurses at Silverton.

During first half-hour of the PNCC meeting, only nurses are in the room, creating a unique space found nowhere else in the hospital where nurses from every department can speak freely only among ourselves. Then for the second half of the meeting we are joined by two members of the hospital administration to ask question, get information, and collaborate to come up with creative solutions.

The PNCC is chaired by a nurse, so the agenda and items addressed are set by a nurse. This is in strong contrast to how the Legacy Administration claims we should address all issues through Legacy's Collaborative Practice Council's. Most are run by managers, and none have a portion of the meeting with only nurses present. And the collaborative practice council's do not include one nurse rep from every unit, each hospital wide council only has a couple nurses on them leaving out most departments.

The only space in which a nurse from every unit are all in the same room every month is the PNCC.

Our PNCC has a long history of resolving issues at Silverton, especially when attempts to take those problems individually to managers have failed. Just in the past year we worked on a variety of safety and nurse practice issues.

We heard nurses, other staff, and our patients weren't feeling safe in a part of our parking lot that needed shrubbery trimmed back and better lighting, so we brought it to PNCC and quickly had it fixed. We pushed for the issue of cold air coming in the admitting area at the Emergency Department be fixed and now there are plans in the works to address that.

We asked for administrators in charge of pharmacy to come to a PNCC meeting so we could talk through issues of drugs being stored in open bins switching to having doors on drawers of important medications so those won't accidentally fall back into the wrong bin. The discussion with pharmacy was very productive and the medication drawers/bins are now being improved. We also had nurses raise concerns over access to lifts to assure nurses and other staff aren't injured while moving patients. After a very positive conversation with hospital administrators we now have disposable lift materials easily accessible to nurses. Time and time again, having a space for nurses from every department to talk through issues and problem solve in a collaborative manner with the administration has led to so many improvements in our hospital and the our nursing practice. Nurses from around the state at ONA hospitals use PNCCs to improve the practice of nursing everywhere.

Lastly, our PNCC is a space that nurses can come together to recognize each other and the hard work that we do. The PNCC has organized a Nurses' Day event every year with refreshments, wonderful raffle baskets, and an event that nurses and all other staff can attend to acknowledge and appreciate our work as nurses. It is very easy for each department to become its own isolated island from the rest of the hospital, but this event, and all the other work that we do, attempts to bring us together across departments and build a sense of community.

Silverton Hospital has always been a small community hospital that values bringing people together. Unfortunately, the Legacy Administration doesn't seem to understand that when they seek to eliminate our PNCC they harm the sense of community it builds.