10 YEARS

The area of critical and emergency nursing is rather specific. Critical states always appear unexpectedly and suddenly. The number of patients is impossible to be foreseen, the state of the patients can very quickly and dramatically change and get complicated. Intensity of events and the number of treatments is large and such is the need for as much information as possible in the shortest time possible. Decisions must be made quickly and all the time we have to adapt to the changes. Often we are faced with tragic outcomes. In all this we want to treat the patient as a subject and take into account the elements of the Slovenian nursing philosophy: respect, safety, integrity, the patient's feelings. We highly value team-work because the treatment of an emergency patient is always multidisciplinary. By introducing modern elements of the nursing into practice we wish to ensure continuity and visibility to the critical care nursing.

The association appointed those who were most deserving for its founding, developments and activity the title "honorary member". With their work, professional attitude they greatly contributed to the confirmation, promotion, growth and professional development of nursing. In 2004 Slavica Klančar was given "The golden sign" as the most prestige award for nurses in Slovenia.
The Association was aware of the importance of documenting all of the procedures of nursing care for better quality of the work and for the continuity of the nursing according to all standards.In this way we adopted a document on nursing of a patient ad missed to the emergency care which was confirmed in 1999 by theProfessional Council of Nursing in University Hospital of Ljubljana and which has since been in use. The European federation of Critical Care Nursing associations, in which there are 23 European countries today, was formally founded in 1999 in order to create links among nurses working in critical care field, to promote nursing, to create necessary conditions for cooperation inside of Europe and to prepare standards for education and practice in the field of critical care nursing. Slovenia was among the founding members.
In 2001 the World Federation of Critical Care Nurses was founded in Australia. Slovenia was among the first 15 members. This is a covering association of numerous professional organizations of nurses taking care of critically endangered patients in different fields. The Federation wants to help nurses put into practice their aims for better nursing and for a better nursing proffesion itself.
The Slovenian Association actively supported the initiative for preparation of professional standards for the qualification of orthopedic technologist. In 2003 and 2004 first the profile of the profession was created, then the profession standards and the Catalogueof professional knowledge and skills standards for this professional qualification, which was published in "Uradni list".

The Association gathers nurses working at critical care and emergency stations of Slovenian hospitals, emergency infirmaries of the local health-centers and all others, who are interested in the field of critical care nursing patients.
The basic aims of the Association, which was written down at the time of its foundation, are:
- Promotion of critical care nursing
- Preparation and realization of ongoing professional training in critical care nursing
- Creation of professional standards for critical care nursing
- Creation of unified documentation and information netting among various providers of critical emergency care nursing
- Being up-to-date with all the newest developments in the field of critical care nursing in Slovenia and abroad
- Evaluation of the quality and respect of ethic norms
- Links with Slovenian and international organizations
- Active collaboration with European and world congresses by means of talks and preparation of programs
- Scientific research and publications