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Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage is our state's biggest hospital, and I am proud to be one of the roughly 1,200 registered nurses who care for the thousands of Alaskans who seek treatment here each year.
I work in the mental health unit, taking care of patients who come to Providence for behavioral health, substance abuse and psychiatric issues that require inpatient care.
As professional caregivers, nurses constantly strive to maintain our mastery of the latest medical developments and the best practices that support our patients' health and healing. But the bedside is not the only place where we work to make sure Providence is a place where families in Anchorage and throughout Alaska can count on receiving the best care possible.
On Friday evening, nurses at the hospital reached a tentative agreement with Providence after six months of negotiating a new contract. The bargaining table is another place where we focus on the conditions, policies and practices that determine the care we are able to provide. We registered nurses want to be able to give our best all the time. That is the commitment we make to our patients and our profession. But the fact is that often there are not enough of us to go around.
Nurses are always concerned about safe staffing levels — are there enough professional staff to maintain the high-quality care patients deserve? This is an area where we want to do better. With current staffing patterns, nurses often have to skip or work through lunch periods and other scheduled breaks. There are not enough nurses to cover those who are taking breaks they are entitled to — time to eat or to simply rest before returning to patients' bedsides.
Staffing issues can make it harder to retain experienced nurses. Staff retention is important because veteran nurses are valuable to Providence, valuable to colleagues who can learn from them, and (most of all) valuable to our patients.
That's why I am especially pleased with the tentative agreement that Alaska Nurses Association and Providence has reached. We were able to make a number of positive changes, including a new break nurse pilot program, which is aimed at encouraging nurses to take their designated 15-minute rest and meal breaks without feeling concerned about adding to their colleagues' patient loads. The proposed contract also includes a new paid parental leave program, among other changes that I believe will greatly improve workplace happiness for our nurses.
As we ended the week and two full days of contract talks, we remained convinced that we could find room for a new agreement that sustains our professional commitment to do our best for patients, that advances Providence's mission of serving Alaskans with compassion and excellence — values that have guided this hospital and its forebears for more than a century. And I believe we have done just that.
The next step is a contract ratification vote at the end of the month. This agreement demonstrates tremendous collaboration between Providence and our union members. It also represents the importance of what we do in health care and the reason why I became a nurse in the first place — to focus on providing the highest quality of care to my community.
Jennifer Hazen, BSN, RN, is a nurse at Providence Alaska Medical Center and a member of the Alaska Nurses Association.
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