This spring, CLPNA welcomed the Government of Alberta’s invitation to participate in the review of the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health (MACH) “A Foundation for Alberta’s Health System” regarding the proposed Alberta Health Act.
The College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Alberta is committed to working within a comprehensive, universal, portable, publicly-administered, and accessible health care system. We are pleased to support the Government of Alberta’s commitment to these guiding principles, which are the core of the Canada Health Act; and its commitment to sustainable public health care. Read on…
In case you missed it, Dr. Stephen Duckett (CEO & President of Alberta Health Services) recently had a personal encounter with emergency health services that gave him fresh insight into Alberta’s health care system from a patient’s point of view.
In his Blog, he discusses what he learned from the work, collaboration, and many kindnesses extended by the health care workers he encountered, and those working behind the scenes.
Read his complete post under the section “A most unusual event” on Duckett’s AHS Internal Blog titled “Anniversaries, Events, Engagement and Advocacy”.
And if you have a comment, click on “Read more”. Read on…
posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010
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National Nursing Week (May 9-15, 2010) is a time to celebrate the contribution of nurses to our healthcare system and our society. Last month, the stories of the individual achievements of Alberta’s Licensed Practical Nurses were made as the 2010 Awards of Excellence recipients were honoured, and now, we’d like our member’s to share their stories of nursing excellence. Read on…
The chronic and constant uncertainty surrounding the Alberta heath care system lately is making a complex situation even more uncertain for the public and professionals. In the face of growing doubts about the direction and destination of the Alberta health care system there is a need for clarity and focus. As part of a project to bring clarity and focus on the roles, responsibilities, relationships, and scope of nursing care in the province, the CLPNA decided to find out what Albertans valued most about professional nursing care.
The CLPNA recent hired my firm, Cambridge Strategies Inc. to perform a “most/least” conjoint on-line survey of over 900 randomly sampled Albertans that tracked and ranked 15 key values around professional nursing care. We also ran a parallel program of the on-line conjoint survey for members of the CLPNA and were delighted to have 1461 participants. The findings are enlightening and should be instructive, reassuring, and empowering to Licensed Practical Nurses working in Alberta today, even with all the turmoil in health care these days. Read on…
posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
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(The following guest blog was originally published April 20, 2010 by the Alberta Teacher’s Association.)
An educator’s reflections on our healthcare system
Dennis Theobald
Recently, I had an opportunity to become more closely acquainted with Alberta’s healthcare system than I would have liked. But spending a week on my back in a hospital bed with various tubes running in and out of me provided a wonderful, if unwelcomed, opportunity to observe through the eyes of a teacher the work of the men and women employed by Alberta’s largest public service organization, Alberta Health Services.
Alberta Health Services is a behemoth. Employing over 85,000 people in some 400 facilities around the province, its annual budget is in excess of $10 billion. When I showed up in the emergency department of my local hospital, I was just one of 1.9 million patients who present themselves seeking emergency treatment in the course of a year. Though our education system is big, the healthcare system is bigger—much bigger, but the two systems have this much in common: both are fundamentally complex and both deal with people, who have a complexity all their own. Read on…
The Knowledge and Education Project (KEP) report was a collaborative effort between the LPNs, RPNs and RNs. It was an interesting qualitative research process comparing the education and knowledge held by all three categories of nurse prior to graduation. It did not deal with actual real-life nursing situations, so there are limitations to it use in policy and decision making.
The language in the report about LPNs being trained to deal with “stable patients” is very unfortunate, and is sometimes being misinterpreted and not presented as the researchers intended. (CARNA Letter to the Editor of the Edmonton Journal, published April 18, 2010.)
The following article, Understanding KEP: A non-researcher’s guide (reprinted from the Spring 2010 issue of CLPNA’s CARE magazine), explains a more rounded context about the KEP report and its place in nursing evaluation. Read on…
