vi Preface between occupational health nurses, physicians, and other health care providers with re- spect to appropriate and consistent procedures and parameters for clinical management and referral. In addition, the use of standardized clinical guidelines for nursing practice can help in the following ways: To provide for goal-directed outcomes To guide the systematic collection of data To enhance critical thinking and clinical management skills To maximize clinical decision-making To improve the quality and consistency of nursing care To guide the development of evaluative criteria To foster professional accountability It is of paramount importance that the health care provider appropriately maintain confi- dentiality of employee health information. Information required by law and relevant to work-related illness and injury should be disclosed only within the parameters of ethical codes, maintaining employee autonomy, and informed consent. We hope that these guidelines will become a valuable resource for the professional regis- tered nurse practicing in an occupational health setting. We encourage our readers, how- ever, to make use of the many resources available to the occupational health nurse from both public and private sources. To that end, we have included appendices consisting of a variety of sources of information on the practice of occupational health nursing and on specific clinical conditions. Appendix A offers a categorical list of books and journals in the Occupational Health Nursing Reference Library. In Appendix B are Community Re- sources, including a list of training videos, catalogs, agencies, and organizations con- cerned with the advancement of health in the work setting. A directory of the State Boards of Nursing as well as states that have enacted the Nurse Licensure Compact can be found in Appendix C, and in Appendix D are listed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Centers. Appendix E presents commonly used acronyms and Appendix F is a glossary of commonly used terms. We encourage our read- ers to make use of these and other valuable resources in their daily practice and to con- tinually search for new scientifically-based information that will support and improve occupational health nursing practice. Bonnie Rogers
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