Exemplary Care: Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses Working Together

The Association of Registered Nurses of PEI, the Licensed Practical Nurses Association of PEI, and the PEI Health Sector Council today announced the release of Exemplary Care: Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses Working Together. This publication highlights the guiding principles shared among RNs and LPNs and clarifies some of the key differences between RNs and LPNs in clinical practice. The discussion and examples presented in the report reflect the practice of typical nurses and is intended to promote an understanding of:

• the scope of practice of each group,
• the practice expectations when both groups work together, and
• the contributions that both groups bring to the care setting.

Having a full understanding of the different health care contributions of RNs and LPNs will enhance and improve the process of collaboration and effective decision-making in the clinical setting.

RNs and LPNs are two health professions that work very closely together. This document represents an important milestone in fostering mutual knowledge-sharing and increased collaboration between the two professions to relieve some of the tremendous human resource pressures on the health system and create an exemplary health care workplace. A more efficient, collaborative nursing practice benefits all of us – nurses, other allied health professionals, and clients of the health system. An efficient, collaborative nursing practice enhances our ability to recruit and retain nurses and leads to better utilization of human resources and, consequently, savings in financial resources.

I hope you get a chance to read and comment on this document.

Cheers,
Mark

It's a blog!

Welcome to Health Views, a blog created by the PEI Health Sector Council to discuss health human resource issues relevant to the PEI health system. This blog is designed to facilitate the sharing of information and stimulate discussion around current and emerging HHR issues in three categories:

· Recruitment and retention
· Collaborative practice
· Optimization of health human resources

These categories are intentionally broad so that we can explore a variety of topics – issues like scope of practice, interprofessional care, health worker shortages, workplace bullying, education and public awareness of health human resource issues and the changing paradigm of health care on a regional and global scale. The PEIHSC has explored many of these issues since its inception in 2006. Scope of practice and interprofessional care were discussed in two forums (the Scope of Practice Forum 2007 and Collaborative Practice Forum 2008) and a series of focus groups. Recruitment and retention of health workers was addressed by a Job Satisfaction and Retention Survey in 2008, and health career promotion was the focus of two exit strategy surveys conducted with grade 12 students in 2007 and 2008 and the directory of Health Careers on Prince Edward Island. Check out our quarterly newsletter, Health Benefits, for further discussion of these and other issues.

Stay tuned to the site for upcoming articles and commentary. We welcome your comments and also invite you to submit articles and commentary to be considered for future postings.

Cheers,
PEI Health Sector Council Staff