I believe that there is always a pressing need for organizations for nurses as they play a crucial role in providing all kinds of professional support, generating new ideas and innovative solutions, and organizing nurses’ collaboration (Williams, Fulbrook, Kleinpell, Schmollgruber, & Alberto, 2015). The importance of nursing associations can be supported by the following arguments:
- They provide political advocacy in case of necessity. Needs of nursing often cannot be satisfied without an access to legislative bodies. Nursing organizations ensure a greater nursing presence in a policy-making arena and involvement in health care development (Mason, 2015).
- They perform an informative function. Professional associations are able to communicate information to its members in a most effective manner using newsletters, bulletin alerts, emails, Tweets, Facebook, and other ways of interaction. In many cases, information received in due time may significantly affect health care delivery (Krautscheid, 2014).
- Nursing organizations disseminate knowledge. Besides regular communication, most professional associations publish articles, blogs, and books related to the profession in order to foster learning and answer some controversial questions (DeVon, Rice, Pickler, Krause-Parello, & Richmond, 2016).
- They encourage and support professional development. Members of nursing associations have a unique chance to get involved in continuous education by receiving credits (either at a considerable discount or totally free of charge). Those nurses who have no opportunity to attend classes can make the most of online courses and webinars as well as other forms of distant education. This can significantly assist in career building (Molzahn & Clark, 2015).
I also believe that there should be an organization that would act the voice for nursing as leaders must guarantee that it is heard regardless of the aspect. It may concern policy making, community activism, problems with patients or application of a new technology–in any case, nurses must have support by a professional organization to be able to promote improvement, and ensure high-quality care (Shamian, 2016).
References
DeVon, H. A., Rice, M., Pickler, R. H., Krause-Parello, C. A., & Richmond, T. S. (2016). Setting nursing science priorities to meet contemporary health care needs. Nursing Outlook, 64(4), 399-401.
Krautscheid, L. C. (2014). Defining professional nursing accountability: A literature review. Journal of Professional Nursing, 30(1), 43-47.
Mason, D. J. (2015). A mission-driven organization. Nursing Outlook, 63(5), 537-539.
Molzahn, A. E., & Clark, A. M. (2015). Quality matters: Metrics and benchmarking of academic nursing organizations. Nurse Education Today, 35(1), 9-11.
Shamian, J. (2016). In setting global policy, nursing’s voice is needed. The American Journal of Nursing, 116(8), 7-13.
Williams, G., Fulbrook, P., Kleinpell, R., Schmollgruber, S., & Alberto, L. (2015). Critical care nursing organizations and activities: A fourth worldwide review. International Nursing Review, 62(4), 453-461.