Nov. 4--After the threat of strike, Woodland Healthcare's parent company, Catholic Healthcare West, announced an agreement with the California Nurses Association.

The new pact covers around 13,000 nurses at 35 facilities in California and Nevada.

The tentative agreements, reached Tuesday, include a new master contract with standard wage/benefit packages for covered nurses at California facilities. In Nevada, a proposal for the first CNA contract at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in southern Nevada, and the extension of the Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno.

The two new contracts, if ratified, would include wage increases of 20 percent over four years.

The contracts also include a collaborative agreement covering measures to limit and treat H1N1 influenza across the CHW system.

"With this historic agreement, we are charting a new course for limiting the spread of not only swine flu but all other dangerous pandemics that are yet to come," said Rose Ann DeMoro, CNA/NNOC executive director. "We are pleased that Catholic Healthcare West is joining with us to set the highest possible hospital safeguards for patients and nurses and creating an innovative model that every hospital in America should follow."

Response to the H1N1 pandemic and future health contagions include information and training, as well as the provision of personal protective equipment like respirator masks and clothing.

Under the agreements, nurses will have a collaborative voice in monitoring these measures through a joint, systemwide Pandemic Task Force.

The task force will monitor preparedness and set uniform standards on full implementation of federal, state and local guidelines, availability of the property safety protective equipment, communication and training policies for all hospital personnel. Consideration will also be made for other steps, such as off-site emergency triage and treatment.

Nurses praised the settlement -- which also averted a strike that had been called for October 30 -- as an important step in securing better safety measures in their hospitals.

"Catholic Healthcare West and its hospitals have been following federal and state guidelines for the H1N1 pandemic," said Robert Wiebe, MD, senior vice president/chief medical officer. "Since the pandemic was declared last spring, we have been taking measures to ensure the health and safety of our patients, employees and communities. We are pleased to have the CNA's full collaboration in furthering our efforts."

The CNA bargaining team will unanimously recommend that CHW's registered nurses approve the agreements. If the nurses do approve them, the contracts will become effective immediately.

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