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The OCEA Professional Nurses Caucus provides an excellent opportunity to discuss issues confronting the County's professional nurses.
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OCEA Professional Nurses Caucus
New Director of Nursing: HCA has hired a new Director of Nursing, Pam Giese, and OCEA will try to arrange for her to come to a “meet and greet” at an expanded Nurses Forum meeting. Pending Issues: OCEA is hoping to resolve the following: • Develop changes in medication error tracking and discipline; There will be no regular meetings in November or December due to the numbers of people out on vacation. The next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 6, 2009.
Professional Nurses Caucus Meeting Highlights
SUSAN G. KOMEN “RACE FOR THE CURE”: OCEA will be entering a team in this year’s event on September 28, 2008. Flyers will be blasted in e-mail, as well as distributed and posted on site. Participating as walkers, runners, and/or volunteers to staff the team’s “tailgate table” was discussed, along with how contributions could be made. FLURRY OF ACTIVITY: OCEA is noticing a lot of “accelerated discipline” and other actions that occur when there are budget cuts. HCA OPEN MEMO TO ALL EMPLOYEES RE: MANAGEMENT AND SUPPORT STAFF 9/80s: There was discussion about the possible implications of the recent memo. MEET AND CONFERS -- Nurses Classification Modernization Project: The comprehensive skills assessment survey is nearly ready for distribution. It is supposed to be handled as a work assignment and nurses are to be given work time to complete it. CMS LVN Work Schedules: There is another meeting scheduled at management’s request for August 12, 2008, to respond to the proposed schedules presented by OCEA in July. Quality Assurance Audit for Field Workers: The group will meet again on Wednesday, August 6, 2008.
The next Nurses Caucus meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 2, 2008 12:00 noon at OCEA. This is a holiday week, and the meeting may be cancelled, subject to the number of participants available.
Behavioral Health Best Practices Committee Report Meeting Date June 12, 2008 This was the first full meeting of the committee after an extended hiatus. The two new members from unrepresented program areas were introduced and welcomed. Tasks:
New Items:
Closing: The larger vision for this group was discussed. This involved the desire that this committee function as an advisory group to improve communication and ultimately make improvements in the overall systems of the agency. This included BHS’ ability to provide and improve the quality of services, be culturally and co-occurring disorder competent, support resiliency and recovery model for clients, improve access/integrated services for clients. There was also discussion of compliance charting as it relates to these goals and anxiety staff are experiencing The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 3:00 pm at OCEA.
Professional Nurses Caucus Meeting Highlights
MAY AND NURSES APPRECIATION MONTH: Nurses Appreciation Day was on May 6, 2008. OCEA distributed red and black insulated lunch bags to all of its member nurses in HCA, imprinted with the words, “OCEA APPRECIATES OUR NURSES.” Many thanks to Denise Thomas, April Barrio, Pam Ickes, Paula Beau, Pauline Bui, Susan Johnson, Carmen Reynolds, and everyone else who helped with the distribution. A special thanks to Maureen Robles, who with the HCA CMS Main Jail staff, was so helpful in making arrangements to take 150 of the lunch bags into the jail for distribution. MEET AND CONFERS -- Outpatient Clinics: The clinics are proposing to change flex days for staff. Once OCEA is provided with the names of those expected to be impacted, it may only be necessary to contact each member for discussion and possible hardship issues. Nurses Classifications: It was determined by the OCEA team that it might be worthwhile to visit Los Angeles County Mental Health, Public Health, and Sheriff’s Departments to discuss why and how their nursing series were expanded, to include our project’s questions about recruitment, retention, and the ability to move from one are to another without financial impact. Information from such a visit could cut down the amount of work the HCA/OCEA team has to do before having anything about which it can formally meet and confer on for possible implementation. Quality Assurance Audit for Field Workers: This policy was suspended in Community Health pending the outcome of the meet and confer process. OCEA and HCA met and conferred for the first time on April 2, 2008. A second meeting will be conducted on June 5, 2008. Pharmacy Closures: OCEA met with HCA on May 27, 2008, to discuss the closing of two pharmacies several months ago. The pharmacies were staffed by contract pharmacists, and the Agency therefore believed that it had no meet and confer obligation. The psychiatrists have been severely impacted by the paperwork the pharmacists had been doing to: support the need for prescriptions that were being questioned, appeal rejected prescriptions, and resubmit justifications for medications that were being approved one month and denied the next. A second meeting is to be scheduled. The next Nurses Caucus meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 12:00 noon at OCEA. OCEA Professional Nurses Caucus
NURSES APPRECIATION WEEK: Nurses Appreciation Day is on May 6, 2008. OCEA will work with the nurses to distribute red and black insulated lunch bags. The Hot Dog wagon has been scheduled for two of the large sites that week. MEET AND CONFERS -- Special Diseases Clinics: The proposed elimination of the 9/80 work schedules at the Special Diseases Clinics should be decided in the next few days. OCEA and HCA met for the second time on March 4, 2008 and management will provide its response in writing. Nurses Classifications: The team that met to discuss the intent of the proposal to modernize the nursing classifications and series has evolved into a working group that will meet approximately every other week for the one to two years to research and discuss changes that could be made to the nurses’ classifications/series to bring them into better conformance with the current nursing community. A letter to this effect was mailed-out by OCEA last week, describing that this process will be stopped if it begins to develop into a product that could harm, rather than benefit our members. Behavioral Health Budget Cuts: OCEA and HCA are in the process of trying to schedule a second meeting. This proposal is requires more urgent action, due to the state of HCA’s budget. Juvenile Health 9/80 Work Schedule: OCEA and HCA will meet for the third time on March 4, 2008. There is no decision yet. Juvenile Hall Camps Elimination of 9/80 Work Schedules: OCEA sent HCA a demand to meet and confer when it was discovered that nurses working in the camps had had their 9/80 work schedules taken away from them about two years ago. This was done without the use of the meet and confer process. Quality Assurance Audit for Field Workers: This policy was suspended in Community Health pending the outcome of the meet and confer process. The next meeting will be held on April 1, 2008 at 12:00 noon at OCEA. OCEA Professional Nurses Caucus
The meeting topics primarily involved the discussion of the HCA subjects being dealt with through the meet and confer process, particularly as they affect nurses. Juvenile Health: HCA has proposed eliminating the 9/80 nurses work-schedules at Juvenile Hall and at Orangewood. The input received from the impacted employees was overwhelmingly against the change. A serious issue involving management conduct caused OCEA to protest, and the second meeting ended early. The next meeting will include representation from both facilities and will be held at OCEA. Special Diseases Clinics: HCA has proposed eliminating the 9/80 work schedules at the Special Diseases Clinics. Again, the input received from the impacted employees was overwhelmingly against it. The second meeting is in the process of being scheduled and will include as close representation of the classifications of employees working in the clinics as operationally possible. This meeting is in the process of being scheduled. Nurses Classifications: The most recent round of negotiations resulted in the tabling of a County proposal to "modernize" the nursing classifications and series. A team was formed during the fall and meetings will begin on Friday, February 8, 2008. We don't know what the Agency's intent is yet and will keep everyone updated. Behavioral Health Budget Cuts: Another round of cuts will affect Behavioral Health. HCA has held positions and does not anticipate layoffs. The meet-and-confer process on impact will begin on February 13, 2008. A team representing the three facilities proposed to be closed is being assembled. Other issues discussed were introduced by OCEA and included: 1) the numerous changes in policies and procedures that are being reported; and 2) speculation about hiring and promotions. Research is being conducted in both areas, especially as they may involve violations of the meet-and-confer process or County rules. Clarification was provided about the 5-year and 10-year Longevity Bonuses. Employees who already had 10 years or more of service at the time the MOU went into effect were not eligible. The County's reasoning behind refusing retroactivity was that the intent was to prevent losing newer employees. Employees with more than 10 years of service are not leaving in any significant number. The next meeting will be held on March 4, 2008, at 12:00 noon at OCEA. |