AORN education

Involvement with groups strengthens AORN education As AORN strives to provide education for its members, it finds it necessary to become involved with other health care groups to gain knowledge of current happenings and have a route of communication on common concerns. Because of its commitment to providing continuing education, it has made every effort to have input into activities of other health care groups that have significance for the operating room nurse. How these activities relate to education for the operating room nurse is important. The AORN professional staff are members of the American Nurses’ Association (ANA) Continuing Education Council. This membership entitles us to prior knowledge and input into all documents published by the Council. These include Guidelines for Staff Development, Standards of Continuing Education, and Continuing Education Guidelines for State Nurses’ Associations. It also keeps us knowledgeable about developments in continuing education at all levels. Carol Alexander, AORN director of education, is chairperson of the ANA Council on Continuing Education ad hoc Committee on Accreditation of Continuing Education Programs in Nursing. Her name also has been submitted to serve on the ANA National Ac-

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creditation Board for accrediting continuing education programs. With knowledge of accreditation, AORN has structured its educational programs so they will meet accreditation criteria once the concept becomes operational. As a consequence, AORN anticipates few problems in meeting established criteria. Mrs Alexander’s involvement with the committee has led to many speaking engagements including speaker at the ANA Council on Continuing Education in September. As director of education, Mrs Alexander represents AORN at all these activities. Barba Edwards, president-elect, and Mary Nolan, Research Committee chairman, are members of the ANA Council of Nurse Researchers. AORN members are doing research relative to the operating room, which should be shared with other professional nurses. The opportunity to present our studies and have contact with other nurses results in growth on the part of all involved. AORN’s director of membership, Caroline Rogers, was a member of the ANA Task Force that clarified the 1964 position paper statement relative to the status of diploma nurse graduates. The Task Force confirmed that diploma nurse graduates functioned at the professional level and recommended that these nurses be provided the opportunity and be encouraged to seek degree status. Inherent in this recommendation was that graduates be given credit for work completed at the diploma level. Terry Fehlau and I worked with ANA to develop the Standards of Nursing Practice:

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Operating Room which the AORN ad hoe Committee on Certification reviewed and forwarded to the AORN Board of Directors for final approval before being published jointly by AORN-ANA. These standards, which reflect the nursing process for operating room nursing, are a model to guide practice in the individual setting. They also serve as a basis for nursing audit and peer review and assist in identifying areas of continuing education. AORN has also been involved in the development of the ANA medical-surgicalnursing certification exam. Gwen Dodge, AORN assistant director of education, wrote one of the simulations for the examination and is also a member of the Test Specifications Committee. AORN has also submitted content pertinent to a proposed OR component of the medical-surgical examination. We are continuing to investigate the wishes of the membership for an OR component. AORN was also invited to send a representative to the Professional Standards Review Organization (PSRO) project funded by the Bureau of Quality Assurance at the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I was a member of the ANA Technical Advisory Committee that was responsible for directing the PSRO project. The project developed model sets of criteria for evaluation of patient care, guidelines for use of the criteria, and determined what the involvement of nurses should be in PSRO. The input and information derived from involvement on this committee has influenced the nursing audit seminar AORN is presently conducting and also other activities AORN is involved in with other nursing groups. Another important development was the formation of the Federation of Specialty Nursing Organizations and ANA. Current and past AORN presidents and Jerry Peers, executive director, have participated in this group of nursing leaders. Through this organization AORN has an influence on the future direction of nursing. While participating on ANA committees and projects, AORN members meet nurses from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals; educators in schools of nursing at the basic, graduate, and continuing education levels; nurses in other specialty groups;

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and nurses who are involved in the federal government. These nurses gain respect for AORN by getting to know us. ANA has come to respect and value contributions to nursing by AORN as evidenced by invitations to participate in activities not OR in nature, but having impact on the OR nurse. ANA realizes that the aggressiveness of AORN members and their willingness to participate are key factors in the success of AORN. Professional liaison also occurs with the American College of Surgeons. Miss Peers is a member of the ACS Control of OR Environment Committee (CORE). Patricia Rogers, AORN immediate past-president, is on a CORE subcommittee, Operating Room Utilization which studies scheduling, utilization, and down time. Virginia Damos, AORN Board of Directors member, is on another CORE subcommittee that works with hospital architects on OR design. Jane McCluskey, Board member, represents AORN on the 2-79 subcommittee on the use of ethylene oxide of the Association of Advancement of Medical Instruments. Rose Marie McWilliams, AORN assistant director of education, is an OR consultant and a well-known expert in the area of aseptic practice and has impact in terms of safe practice as it relates to quality patient care. She is involved with five committees working on standards relevant to OR nursing. She is a member of the Federal Drug Administration Panel on General and Plastic Surgery to classify devices used in the specialties; a member of the Medical Device Technical Advisory Board; a representative of AORN with the National Fire Protection Association; vice-chairman of the Medical Device Standards of the American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM); a member of an ASTM committee for standards on surgical gloves; and a member of the executive committee for Standard Medical Electronics, a subcommittee of the American National Standards Institute. Carol Lindeman, director of the regional program for nursing research development at the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, invited AORN to cooperate by jointly funding a group of operating room nurses in a research project to measure quality of nursing care. The focus of the

AORN Journal, October 1975,Val 22, N o 4

study is to identify nursing activities of the OR nurse and relate them to the subsequent health status of the patient. To accomplish this, we will attempt to establish which nursing activities correlate with patient outcomes. The project will take approximately one and a half years and will have major significance for OR nurses in terms of administering and evaluating patient care. The results will be published or reported to the membership. As you can see, AORN is involved on

many committees. A few have been mentioned to illustrate our commitment in providing current, relevant, and necessary continuing education to AORN members. Through involvement in other professional associations, voluntary organizations, and government agencies, AORN is able to accomplish more for its members and the patient who ultimately benefits from our efforts.

Patient has final say on eyeglasses

Hypertension task force

Automation helps in eyeglass testing but the patient still has the last word and the prescription for glasses must depend on what he says he sees best. This conclusion was reached by a team of ophthalmologists at a recent symposium on automatic refractions. Their report appeared in the May/June issue of Transactions, official journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology. “It is truly a sad commentary that to our gullible public nice, neat, clearly typed out numbers from a lovely machine tend to be sanctified as holy output. They are not and tend to distract us from the truism that a refractive correction must ultimately satisfy a human patient,” says Melvin L Rubin of the University of Florida, Gainesville, who served as the symposium’s chairman. Dr Rubin said automated refractors make excellent rough, objective readings, save time, and simplify part of the procedure in checking the eyes for glasses. More refined refractions, however, must be achieved with the help of vocal responses from the patient, he explained. Electronic instruments can become a valuable part of office practice, but they should not be used alone for determining the necessary refraction, he said, urging ophthalmologists not to demand more from automated and electronic devices than they can realistically provide.

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Julie Kneedler, RN, MS Assistant Director of Education

A task force on nursing in high blood pressure control has been formed under the National High Blood Pressure Education Program (NHBPEP) through the efforts of the Division on Medical-Surgical Nursing Practice of the American Nurses’ Association (ANA). Chairperson is Elizabeth Giblin, PhD, also vice-chairperson of the Division’s executive committee. The NHBPEP task force was established to define the scope of nursing in high blood pressure control, define process criteria in relation to specified patient outcomes for nursing, develop curricula objectives for achieving the criteria, identify education approacheslmethodologies and instruction techniques needed to achieve objectives, and identify evaluation procedures and methodologies to determine if objectives have been achieved. Other ANA members on the task force include Anne Ackerman, Silver Spring, Md; Grace Brown, New York; Mary Ann Christ, Rochester, NY; Harriet Moidel, Los Angeles; Dorothy Ozimek, New York; Alice M Robinson, New York; and Margaret A Williams, Denver. Cosponsors are ANA, National League for Nursing, National Student Nurses‘ Association, American Heart Association’s Council on Cardiovascular Nursing, and National Heart and Lung Institute.

AORN Journal, Octoher 1975, Val 22, No 4

Involvement with groups strengthens AORN education.

AORN education Involvement with groups strengthens AORN education As AORN strives to provide education for its members, it finds it necessary to beco...
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