Abstract
Collection is comprised of the organizational records of the Nevada Nurses Association dating from 1945 through 1995. Topics addressed by the material include Planned Parenthood, state legislature on health care, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and League of Women Voters. Types of material in the collection include clippings, association history, membership information, receipts, correspondence, convention notes and programs, alumni directory, newsletters, pamphlets, meeting minutes, and scrapbooks.
Finding Aid PDF
Date
Extent
Related People/Corporations
Scope and Contents Note
Collection is comprised of organizational records of the Nevada Nurses Association (NNA) from 1945 to 1995. Topics addressed include state legislature on health care, Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), Planned Parenthood, and League of Women Voters. Types of material in the collection include clippings, history, membership information, receipts, correspondence, convention notes and programs, alumni directories, newsletters, pamphlets, meeting minutes and scrapbooks.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Arrangement
Materials remain in original order.
Biographical / Historical Note
"Nevada Nurses Association is an association of nurses working for nurses. They represent all of Nevada's registered nurses (RNs) including staff nurses, nurse educators, nurse practitioners, school nurses, and public health nurses. They take a comprehensive and multi-purpose approach to advocating the needs of all registered nurses in all settings."
The organizational history and the following chronology were taken directly from the NNA website.
http://www.nvnurses.org/Functional-Category/About-NNA
- 1920
- Nevada Nurses Association (NNA) becomes the Nevada state affiliate of the American Nurses Association.
- 1923
- NNA establishes the profession of nursing and licensure of nursing in Nevada.
- 1950's - 1980's
- NNA works to establish RN education programs at both Nevada universities and all four community colleges.
- 1966
- NNA negotiates a significant increase in nursing salaries with the Nevada Hospital Association.
- 1973
- NNA establishes Advanced Practice Nursing in Nevada.
- 1983
- NNA fights for prescriptive authority for Advanced Practice Nurses in Nevada.
- 1993, 1995, 1996
- NNA leads the opposition effort to proposals that would have expanded the scope of practice of nursing assistants.
- 1998
- NNA leads the opposition of regulations that would have required delegation of nursing duties to additional unlicensed assistive personnel
- 1998
- NNA first secures introduction by Nevada Senator Harry Reid of the federal bill for safer needle devices in health care that was ultimately signed by President Clinton in 2000.
- 1999, 2000
- NNA helps develop and promote regulations requiring staffing by acuity and confidential reporting mechanisms for violations of these regulations.
- 2001
- Eliminates, through legislation, the growing practice of replacing registered nurses with lesser-qualified medical assistants by the Nevada Legislature in the public school systems. Assembly Bill 1 required that school nursing be overseen by a registered nurse.
- 2001
- Senate Bill 52 provides schedule two prescriptive authority for Advanced Practice Nurses in Nevada. This was a particularly important step to meet the needs of patients in rural settings with limited access to primary care services.
- 2001
- NNA spearheads successful worker’s compensation reform legislation (AB 279) creating an automatic presumption that any nurse who develops a bloodborne disease after sustaining (and reporting) a workplace exposure is presumed to have acquired that infection from that work exposure.
- 2003
- NNA participates in the creation of the Nevada Organ and Tissue Donation Task Force, which has since created public awareness and raised considerable funds for organ donation in Nevada. As a result of AB 497, donation rates have risen dramatically since the passage of this important legislation.
- 2003
- NNA works with the Nevada Organization of Nurse Leaders and Nevada’s Nursing Labor groups as part of a coalition to enhance criminal penalties for assault on a healthcare worker. As a result of AB 53, assault on a healthcare worker in the course of carrying out his/her job is now a class IV felony in Nevada.
- 2003
- (Special Medical Malpractice Session) NNA leads efforts to introduce whistle-blower protection legislation into Nevada statute to protect nurses who report healthcare practice that may harm patients treated in Nevada healthcare facilities.
- 2003
- NNA works with a coalition of others to secure funding for doubling the enrollment in Nevada’s schools of nursing to combat Nevada’s growing nursing shortage. A bill directing the doubling plan (AB 378) was passed by the 2001 legislature, but was unfunded at that time.
- 2005
- NNA spearheads efforts to pass legislative protections for Nevada nurses who decline to provide nursing care for which the nurse does not possess the knowledge, skill, and/or ability to safely perform. As a result of AB 183 nurses who refuse to engage in such activity cannot be terminated for having done so.
- 2005
- NNA works with a coalition of other healthcare stakeholders to amend the healthcare declaration and advanced directive statutes in Nevada to allow Nevadans clearer choices when making end of life decisions (SB 206).
- 2007
- NNA works with other stakeholders to address educational requirements for nursing faculty in Nevada. SB 412 sought to decrease the requirement to teach nursing from a Master’s degree to a Bachelor’s degree. It ultimately became law that a nurse with a Bachelor’s degree and five years experience can teach nursing in an associate degree program, though the Master’s degree requirement was maintained for Baccalaureate programs.
- 2007
- NNA actively opposes AB 187 which would have provided for the creation of “certified medication aides” in Nevada. This hard-fought battle was an important one in Nevada to protect the health and safety of patients treated in Nevada healthcare facilities. As a result of the efforts of NNA (and others), AB 187 did not become law.
- 2007
- NNA sponsors legislation to require medical facilities to provide safe patient handling equipment to prevent musculoskeletal injuries in Nevada nurses. Ultimately, the Nevada Nurses Association decides to withdraw AB 577 when language was amended into it that would have preserved manual lifting in the form of “lift teams.” It was felt that is was preferable to not pursue the legislation with this provision rather than create a situation where healthcare workers would continue to be injured through mechanical lifting practices.
- 2007
- NNA spearheads an effort to provide title protection for the title “nurse” to prevent personnel (i.e. medical assistants) from calling themselves nurses without appropriate training, education, and credentialing. This important patient safety legislation allows those treated in Nevada physician’s offices and medical facilities to know when they are, indeed, being treated by a Registered Nurse.
- 2009
- NNA leads efforts to enhance previously legislated whistle-blower protections to protect nurses who advocate for patient safety. AB 10 provides protections for nurses who report both internally and externally, and reports to various government agencies (including the Nevada State Board of Nursing) are also included in the protection afforded by this law. AB 10 also creates a presumption that a nurse who is fired or subject to any sort of adverse employment action within 60 days of reporting an unsafe practice is the target of a retaliatory action.
- 2009
- NNA works with the Nevada Hospital Association to pass AB 121, which requires that each hospital in Clark and Washoe counties create a staffing committee comprised of at least 50% direct care nurses. The committee recommends staffing procedures at each hospital unique to that hospital.
- 2009
- NNA works with other key stakeholders to pass AB 206, which included an amendment that acted as a companion bill to AB 10’s whistleblower protections by requiring medical facilities that employ nurses to post in each facility the proper procedures that a nurse can follow to report unsafe conditions or processes.
- 2011
- NNA works to pass the requirement of national certification for advanced practice nurses (APNs) in our state in order for APNs to obtain a certificate of recognition as an advanced practitioner of nursing from the Nevada State Board of Nursing.
- 2012
- NNA works with other stakeholders to form the State Collaborative on Lateral Violence in Nursing. Launched the NNA Healthy Nevada Nurses Initiative to encourage nurses to pay more attention to their own health and wellness.
- 2013
- NNA works with other stakeholders to pass SB 362 to strengthen the Staffing Committee laws. Supported and worked to pass: AB 170 (APRN autonomous practice), a law requiring schools to have undesignated epi-pens for use in emergencies; CPR training for students .
Preferred Citation
Nevada Nurses Association Las Vegas, Nevada, 1945-1995. MS-00240. Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated in 1985 by the Board of Directors, Nevada Nurses Association District III; accession number 85-34.
Processing Note
These records are unprocessed. A rough inventory of the accession was created by Dallas Reiber in 2014. To prepare the inventory, the described materials were reviewed to create a contents list, estimate dates, and identify material types. Joyce Moore further revised the materials in 2015 to bring the description into compliance with current professional standards.