MNA Recognized for the Quality of Its Continuing Education Program for Registered Nurses in the Commonwealth; Receives Accreditation with Distinction Award from ANCC

CANTON, Mass., Feb. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), the professional association and largest union for registered nurses and health professionals in the Commonwealth, has been recognized for its high quality continuing education program by receiving Accreditation with Distinction from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), the credentialing body's highest rating. 

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The MNA is among the state's leading providers of clinical continuing education programs with a team of expert nurse educators who provide cutting edge clinical education to thousands of nurses each year through a variety of programs held throughout the Commonwealth and New England, as well as within facilities where the Association represents nurses for collective bargaining. Continuing education is an essential requirement of professional nursing practice, as nurses are required to obtain 15 continuing education contact hours every two years in order to maintain their license to practice nursing in the state. In fact, the MNA, which is the organization responsible for the creation of registered nursing in the Commonwealth more than 100 years ago, is also the organization that drafted and led the fight to pass the law to require ongoing education for nurses. 

"In today's rapidly changing health care environment, where new medications, technologies and treatment regimens are developed every year, it is critical that nurses be provided with the up-to-date, high quality educational programming that allows them to keep current and to ensure they provide optimum patient care," said Donna Kelly-Williams, RN, president of MNA. 

The need for access to quality continuing education has become even more critical for nurses given the fact that in recent years, in an effort to cut costs, hospitals have dramatically cut back, or totally dismantled their in-hospital staff education programs and departments. 

"Not only have hospitals cut back on the staff needed to safely care for patients, they have also abandoned their responsibility to ensure that nurses have the continuing education nurses need to deliver care in this high stressed, rapidly changing medical environment," Williams explained. "It has been left to the MNA and other professional associations to fill that void and meet that need."

The organization meets nurses continuing education needs through individual class offerings, all day conferences and through a growing online education component offered through the MNA web site, which is designed to accommodate the needs of nurses managing hectic family schedules, and for those who work off shifts. For MNA's 23,000 members, all of these programs are free of charge. 

Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest professional health care organization and the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public. The MNA is a founding member of National Nurses United, the largest national nurses union in the United States with more than 170,000 members from coast to coast.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United