UNAC/UHCP & NUHHCE Team for Nephrology Caregivers Conference

June 2017

The first-of-its-kind Nephrology Caregivers Conference sponsored by the UNAC/UHCP and NUHHCE team topped out at more than 200 registered attendees. Fresenius and DaVita RNs and PCTs from acute and chronic settings mixed with UNAC/UHCP members from acute hospitals throughout Southern California to talk about challenges within the field of dialysis.

Attendees got 5.5 free CEs for attending a day full of presentations from diverse experts in the field. They visited vendor booths. Non-union dialysis professionals mingled with UNAC and NUHHCE members.

The most important takeaway for conference attendees was that staffing ratios, reasonable transition times and a supportive work environment in dialysis save lives—as called for in The Dialysis Patient Safety Act, or California Senate Bill 349, co-sponsored by SB 349. Decades of evidence from numerous studies show this.

The day’s final presentation, “Nurse Staffing, Workload and the Dialysis Work Environment: Do They Matter” by esteemed academic researchers Dr. Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins, PhD, RN, and Dr. Linda Flynn, PhD, RN, FAAN, made the case.

See their full side presentation here, with study citations, summaries, charts and key findings. Full video of the presentation will be posted there soon.

“Study after study after study in multiple settings and multiple countries, multiple hospitals and multiple centers, show the same results…Staffing ratios, in other words, nurses’ workload, the number of patients assigned to RNs, matters in terms of patient outcomes.”

—Dr. Linda Flynn, PhD, RN, FAAN, 6/11/17

“After the conference it’s clear to me—there is overwhelming evidence that the Dialysis Patient Safety Act is right for dialysis, right for the workers, right for our companies and most especially, right for our patients.”

—Jay Lozada, PCT

Many of the dialysis clinic and acute workers who attended are leading a campaign to transform dialysis by making it more patient-centered and less profit-centered. The Dialysis Patient Safety Act, which seeks to win safe caregiver-to-patient ratios, minimum patient transition times, and annual inspections of dialysis clinics, is one initiative in the campaign.

California's landmark RN-to-patient ratios law which UNAC/UHCP helped to win stands as an example for the dialysis campaign.

Learn more about the campaign at transformdialysis.org. #TransformDialysis