This issue begins JONA Law's 7th year of publication. In the last year, patient safety has become a huge issue in healthcare, impacting all areas of practice and probably occupying a fair amount of the nurse executive's time at work. In the fall of 2004, American Organization of Nurse Executives distributed a packet of information entitled Strategies for Leadership: Nursing Leadership for Patient Safety. If you have not read this packet, I highly recommend that you contact American Organization of Nurse Executives to obtain a copy (http://www.aone.org). In brief, the information provided gives nurse executives a road map for how they can become more proactive to fulfill their central role in patient safety. These materials note that nurse leaders need to be willing and able to do the following:
* Participate in executive decisions within the organization.
* Represent nursing staff to management and facilitate mutual trust.
* Achieve effective communication between nursing and other clinical leadership.
* Facilitate input of bedside staff into decision making, design of work processes, and design of work flow.
* Use organizational resources to support the acquisition, management, and dissemination of the knowledge needed to support nursing staff clinical decision making and actions.
As the new year begins, perhaps it is worth considering if your facility enables you to do the items noted above and, if not, what you can do to change things. Patient safety is now more than ever a part of the healthcare landscape. Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
Erratum
Because of a production error, the references in the article by Nancy Crigger published in our last issue were misnumbered [2004;6(4):105-113]. A corrected version of this article is available on our Web site at http://nursingcenter.com and http://jonalaw.com, can be accessed free of charge.