A Non-Profit Nurses Registry and the NJ Patient Bill of Rights

Article submitted by A&A Nurses Registry.
For more information, they can be reached at 201-251-1700.

Up until about 15 years ago and for more than sixty years before, practically every hospital or its affiliated nursing school alumni association had a professional nurses registry, where patients and their families could find an experienced registered nurse to render private duty care at the bedside. Anyone obtaining a referral from the nurses registry had the assurance that the nurse would adhere to the highest standards of nursing practice, while providing the skilled nursing care that only a registered nurse is licensed to give.

As hospital based schools of nursing were gradually phased out and replaced with college nursing programs, the hospital based nurses registries all but disappeared. However, the desire for skilled private duty nursing care did not disappear. Patients and families wanting the finest nursing care, whether in the hospital or at home, found it increasingly difficult to find experienced RNs for private duty care.

In 1992, the A&A Ridgewood Registered Professional Nurses Association of Bergen County formed the A&A Nurses Registry to fill this need. As a non profit professional nurses association, the only agenda was to provide the community with experienced RNs who satisfied the association's strict credentialing criteria. And so, like the hospital based registries of the past, anyone can feel assured that an A&A referred RN will adhere to the highest standards of nursing practice.

In 1994, the NJ legislature recognized the need for patients to have the right to contract directly with the RN of their choice for private duty care and have access to the local non profit professional nurse association registry. Section q was added to the NJ Patient Bill of Rights granting this right and making it law that, upon request for a private duty nurse, every hospital must refer the local non profit nurse association registry. In Bergen County - that registry is the A&A Nurses Registry; 201-251-1700.