Labor & Employment Law

Forum to Examine Ways to Defend Patient Care

By Mike Hall

A panel of health care experts will discuss how health care professionals?from nurses and therapists to social workers and physicians?can defend quality care when managers and policymakers make decisions these workers know will hurt patient care.

Broadcaster Bob Edwards will moderate a special forum on “Defending Patient Care Against External Pressures: Dilemmas and Possibilities” April 15. The forum is sponsored by Professionals for the Public Interest: Associations and Unions Defending Professional Integrity (PftPI) and is being held in conjunction with the AFT Health Care Professional Issues Conference and the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE). The panel will take place from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration. Click here to register.

Edwards will be joined by Dr. Linda Green, MD, associate program director of the Prince George’s (Md.) Hospital Center; Dawn Hobdy, ethics and professional review manager of the National Association of Social Workers; and David Keepnews, associate professor at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City.

This is the first of a series of PftPI forums over the coming months. On May 11, the group will sponsor “Whistleblowers and OSHA” to examine how, and if, federal whistleblower protection rules are working. For more information, click here.

PftPI, formed last year, brings together 19 national and global organizations around a common focus: defending professional integrity against external pressures in the interests of the public. The organizations include eight professional associations; 10 national unions; and the DPE, which collectively represent millions of professionals in disciplines from the sciences and engineering to human services.

For more information, visit the group’s website at www.PftPI.org.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on April 12, 2010 (boomark / email).