TPAPN Board Orders are now Confidential

As of September 1, 2013, TPAPN Board Orders are now confidential.  This is a vast improvement since the statute was changed a few sessions ago requiring the Board to be involved anytime there was a practice issue associated with a substance abuse/addiction issue.  This corrects situations where nurses had sensitive personal information available online for all to see.  Nurses who were referred to TPAPN by the Board and had a mental health  diagnosis or who had an evaluation detailing sensitive personal information had limited choices when they were referred to the Board.  It appears there will be further changes or polishing of the TPAPN process in the near future, so be sure to watch for information and remember it may be in your best interests to consult with an attorney who knows the Board and TPAPN.

To Clarify:  only new TPAPN Board Orders are confidential; the Board is not going back and changing previous Board TPAPN Orders from public to non-public orders.  Since the TPAPN orders are confidential they are not reported to the databank/NURSYS.

Nurses and Addiction

I still continue to find bias against nurses battling addiction. There continues to be a misconception that addiction is a personality defect or a choice. A recent article on Addiction Nursing was published in Advance for Nurses. This article discusses the specialty field of addiction nursing. I thought the article also contained a good description of addiction.

Berthilde Dufrene, MSN, RN, CARN, PRI-C writes, "Addiction is a chronic, incurable, but treatable brain disease. Patients with this disease undergo recurrent cycles of relapse and recovery. Much like other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, patients usually receive care during an acute phase of the illness and are stabilized with the aid of medication. Pharmacotherapy during the acute care stage aims at interrupting the addictive process through medically supervised detoxification and relieving withdrawal symptoms and discomfort.

Continuing care involves counseling and behavior modification with hope of guiding the patient toward a recovery lifestyle."

So, since addiction is a disease, why does it continue to be treated as a crime or a choice. Why are we so supportive of co-workers that are diabetic or have cancer, but we turn on nurses with drug or alcohol issues. Why are we not fighting to get a non-public rehabilitation order to help nurses with addiction (it also applies to mental illness). In Texas, physicians, physician assistants and acupuncturists all have the ability to be put under a rehabilitation order, which is a non-public, non-disciplinary monitoring of a practitioner's practice. Why is there such a push to punish addiction rather than support people on their recovery road? Some of this push comes from public advocacy groups, so why are we not educating them so that they see that the steps they have instilled have only resulted in health care providers not seeking help for fear of retaliation.