Professional
Practice

Professional Practice

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Professional Practice Concerns and Professional Responsibility Complaints: A Guide for ONA Members

Professional practice includes nursing care and professional services. The goal of professional practice is to provide the best possible outcomes for patients/clients with no unnecessary exposure to risk or harm.

Professional practice specialists advise members on practice concerns, as well as supporting them to meet their standards of practice. The specialists also have responsibility for matters relating to the Professional Responsibility Clause. Contact ONA’s professional practice specialists:

Professional Responsibility Concerns

Nurses can take steps to correct excessive workload situations and unsafe patient care environments.

By reporting workload concerns and completing a professional responsibility workload report form (available from your bargaining unit president) every time there is a workload concern, a practice issue or an unsafe condition, the responsibility is shifted back to the employer.

The professional responsibility workload report form (PRWRF) itself is not a professional responsibility complaint, but the start of a paper trail to identify and demonstrate ongoing problems which will require a response by your manager. It also acts as evidence that you have identified an issue related to patient safety or potential risk to your manager and provides you with the proper documentation should you find yourself in the position of responding to the Complaints and Disciplines Committee at the College of Nurses.

The process has led to:

• increased staffing levels;
• practice setting improvements;
• safer work places;
• improved communication processes with employers;
• enhanced nursing practice/quality of care; and
• the provision of necessary equipment and supplies.

Resources

For further reading and more information about professional practice, please see the selected readings that are available on the Resources page.

Teleconnects

Information discussed during ONA’s quarterly Professional Practice Teleconnects is available on the Teleconnects page.