Preparation of a Hospital Nursing Consultant

Abstract

A LTHOUGH the term, nursing consultant, is relatively new, the Ohio Department of Health actually employed such a person as early as 1908 to inspect maternity departments of hospitals in accordance with its law governing the licensure of those services in hospitals. When, in the course of this nurse's inspection tours, hospital personnel began to ask for assistance in matters pertaining to the content and quality of obstetric and pediatric nursing care, a truly consultative service was established. Three other states added hospital nursing consultants to their health departments in connection with laws for licensing hospital maternity services: Indiana and Illinois in 1940, and Massachusetts in 1942. Prior to this time, the licensing of these departments in hospitals in both Indiana and Massachusetts had been the responsibility of the Department of Public Welfare. Michigan employed a hospital nursing consultant in 1941 to develop the nursing program in the care of premature infants. As time went on, this program was expanded to include the care of full-term, newborn infants and, eventually, of maternity patients. A strong, general impetus toward the employment of hospital nursing consultants came as a result of the establishment of the Emergency Maternity and Infant Care Program in March 1943. Under this program, it was necessary for the obstetric departments of hospitals to meet certain minimal standards and requirements for approval before they could admit patients whose care was to be paid for through EMIC funds. On account of