Elizabeth Hovde of the Washington Policy Center believes being able to hire qualified nurses licensed in other states to get to work immediately should be a welcome allowance
Elizabeth Hovde
Washington Policy Center
A bipartisan bill that would allow the state to join 37 others in the multistate Nurse Licensure Compact cleared the state Senate in time to get pushed to the House for hopeful consideration. It would give Washington state hospitals and caregivers a tool to help patients in need.
My fingers are crossed for Senate Bill 5499, which was sponsored by a bipartisan bunch looking for a solution to one of our most pressing workforce challenges. A vote of 40 “yeas” and only eight “nays” (and one excused) gives me realistic hope for the legislation.
Our health system is in need of a lot of urgent care. Problems include workforce issues, an aging population, lack of educated or price-concerned consumers, missing price transparency, Medicaid rolls filled with people in need and people not in need, bad state reimbursement rates for hospitals, unnecessary licensing regulations and government interference with competition needed to help with cost containment. And then there are pandemics that put caregivers in stressful situations, motivate people to retire or change jobs, create the need for more manned hospital beds, and bring cities and states disease hotspots in need of immediate staff fluctuation.
COVID-19 also stressed the importance of using tools available to us in modern times to help provide patient-centered care. Those include increased telemedicine options, various licensure easements and ridding the state of its Certificate of Need law, which lawmakers should have in their sights.
Being able to hire qualified nurses licensed in other states to get to work immediately — while retaining safety and the state’s disciplinary authority, as SB 5499 emphasizes — should be a welcome allowance. I’m glad to see it was in the Senate.
Elizabeth Hovde is a policy analyst and the director of the Centers for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. She is a Clark County resident.
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- Opinion: SJM 8006 wants to take Washingtonians down the wrong health care pathElizabeth Hovde of the Washington Policy Center believes there are better ways to contain costs in health care.
Current funding is 100% allocated to ‘SICK‘ care, managing self-created chronic disorders by promoting lifelong dependency on pharma drugs, and thereby causing undue strain on health practitioners and hospitals.
An example:
Symptoms are being covered up, usually by blocking one or more of the body’s natural functions. This, in turn, is likely to result in a cascade of dysbiosis because all parts of the body work as an integrated whole. Nothing functions independently or in isolation. Then what? More chronic illnesses? More pharma drugs?
Funding should be redirected to focus on promoting wellness oriented lifestyles -including but not limited to – a healthy diet, as-able exercise, quality sleep, minimal/zero alcohol/smoking, zero addictive substances, commitment to mental & physical wellbeing.
Drastic? Yes it is indeed a total U-turn. An essential and long overdue change if we are serious about real ‘HEALTH‘
Whilst this may seem unreasonable to some, many have adopted it with truly fantastic results.
Why not just let our RNs come back to their jobs without a vaccine?
Now there’s a great suggestion, both practical and common sense!
That is one way to celebrate our RNs and show the world that we are born with a highly capable immune system, and do derive additional (natural) immunity if/when we catch and then recover from an illness.