California Nurses Association
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| Founded | 1903 |
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| Members | 80,000 |
| Affiliation | AFL-CIO, Maine State Nurses Association |
| Key people | Executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro; Presidents: Deborah Burger, RN Zenei Cortez, RN Cokie Giles, RN Malinda Markowitz, RN |
| Office location | Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Country | United States |
| Website | www.calnurses.org |
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), is a labor union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States. CNA/NNOC has a four-member Council of Presidents, currently including Deborah Burger, RN; Zenei Cortez, RN; DeAnn McEwen, RN; and Malinda Markowitz, RN. The executive director of the CNA/NNOC is long-time labor leader RoseAnn DeMoro.
The California Nurses Association is well known for its long history of advocacy for direct care registered nurses and patient care protections.
Under DeMoro's leadership, CNA gained attention for its sponsorship of landmark legislative and regulatory reforms, including the nation's first mandated registered nurse-to-patient ratios in California which were sponsored by CNA. The ratio law, which requires hospitals to maintain a minimum number of nurses in all hospital units at all times to assure patient safety, was signed in 1999 by then-California Gov. Gray Davis. The ratios were implemented in 2004. When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought to roll back key portions of the law in late 2004, at the request of the California hospital industry, CNA led a successful year-long campaign to challenge Schwarzegger and protect the law.
In April 2010, a study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, comparing the ratios in California to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, found that if New Jersey had the same ratios as California it would have 14 percent fewer deaths in surgical units, and Pennsylvania would have 11 percent fewer deaths (Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Cimiotti, J. P., Clarke, S. P., Flynn, L., Seago, J. A., ... Smith, H. L. (2010). Implications of the California nurse staffing mandate for other states. Health Services Research, 45(4), 904-921. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6773.2010.01114.x).
CNA was also the principal sponsor of numerous other legislation promoting patient safety, including laws requiring whistle-blower protection for hospital employees who report unsafe conditions, barring discrimination based on medical conditions or genetic characteristics, safeguards on who can provide telephone medical advice, and expanded legal protections for patients harmed by HMO abuses.
Additionally, CNA won changes in state regulations to assure that every patient be assessed by a registered nurse and limiting unsafe assignment of RNs to work in hospital areas for which they do not have clinical expertise.
CNA/NNOC has drawn national attention for campaigns on behalf of patients denied medical treatment recommended by their physicians.
The CNA/NNOC is a primary national organizational advocate of the United States National Health Care Act (HR 676). The bill would establish a single-payer national public health care insurance plan, essentially an improved equal-treatment Medicare for all Americans.
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