
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 13, 1992                   TAG: 9203130518
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By CLARK C. GRANINGER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DIRECTOR SPEAKS OUT . . .I

I FULLY understand and support a vigorous interchange of ideas and concerns between VA Medical Center management and the union - AFGE Local 1739. However, the union president's recent remarks to the local media have disparaged the reputation and excellent staff efforts of the Salem VA Medical Center and have also unnecessarily alarmed veterans and their families concerning their medical care.

Not only were the union president's remarks intended to advance her personal agenda of re-election in April and a possible national-union office at some future date, they were also intended to camouflage the union's major concern with management - competency testing and assignment of our nursing staff.

The 1992 Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations standards for nursing care require that "an evaluation of each nursing staff member's competence is conducted at defined intervals throughout the individual's association with the hospital" and "the evaluation includes an objective assessment of the individual's performance in delivering patient-care services in accordance with patient needs."

These standards are used by all public and private hospitals to establish and monitor an acceptable level of patient care.

On March 3, 1992, we began a nursing-competency training and testing program at our Medical Center to meet the commission's standards and to assure veterans and their families that the nursing staff that attends patients at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives - hospitalization - is competent to meet their needs.

This program was developed utilizing established assessment techniques and was sanctioned by our national and regional nursing leadership. If professional auto mechanics are required to attend refresher courses and pass tests to service your auto, it seems to me that it is appropriate that those who provide patient care should be educationally refreshed and tested at regular intervals.

The most distressing remarks of the union president, a member of our nursing staff, were made to me and others when she seriously declared that she "could not pass a competency test" and that "our standards were too high for our nursing staff."

Our standards at Salem's VA Medical Center are high, and I believe our staff is quite able to meet them. Most absurd of all are the union president's media announcements concerning quality of care at the center while opposing a reasonable and necessary quality-assurance effort directed at our nursing staff.

Veterans deserve and should demand high quality care from Salem's medical center, secure in the knowledge that the nursing staff is competent to serve their needs.

All veterans should write their service officers, congressional representatives, and the secretary of veterans affairs to insist that the accreditation commission's standards be enforced at VA Medical Centers, and that union participation in competency education and testing be prohibited. Quality care and competency testing should never be negotiable or subject to political manipulation.

Clark C. Graninger is director of the VA Medical Center in Salem.

by CNB