The American Nurses Association is the general professional association for registered nurses in the United States. It represents the profession as a whole rather than a specialty, and it is the body that publishes the documents other organisations treat as the profession's own statements of what nursing is.
It has no authority over any nurse. It does not issue licences and cannot discipline anyone. That power belongs to state boards of nursing. See nurse practice acts and boards of nursing.
Origins
It was founded in 1896 as the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada, at a convention near New York City attended by fewer than twenty nurses. Two years later the annual convention drew a reported ten thousand. The organisation took its current name in 1911.
The early agenda was registration: persuading states to pass laws protecting the title of registered nurse. That campaign produced the first practice acts, and with them the regulatory structure the association now works alongside rather than inside.
What it produces
Three publications carry weight beyond the membership.
The code of ethics for nurses, which sets out the profession's obligations to patients, colleagues and itself. It is cited in disciplinary proceedings and in court, and is the reference point for most institutional ethics policy. See nursing ethics.
The scope and standards of practice, which describes what nursing practice consists of and organises it around the steps of the nursing process. Boards of nursing and employers both draw on it. See the nursing process.
Position statements and principles on specific questions, including staffing, fatigue, delegation and workplace violence. The staffing principles argue for acuity-adjusted staffing rather than fixed ratios, which puts the association in a different position from some nursing unions. See patient acuity and staffing systems and nurse overtime.
Structure
The association works through state and territorial affiliates, and membership is normally held at that level. This matters more than it sounds, because in several states the affiliate is also a labour union that bargains contracts, while in others it is purely a professional body. A nurse joining a state association is therefore joining quite different organisations depending on where they live.
Its credentialing subsidiary, established in 1990, certifies individual nurses, accredits continuing education, and runs the recognition programme for hospitals. See American Nurses Credentialing Center and Magnet recognition.
It also publishes a journal for the profession and runs a policy operation in Washington, which produces most of the federal lobbying done in nursing's name, including on mandatory overtime and staffing legislation.
How to read it
The association speaks for the profession by convention rather than by mandate. Its membership is a minority of American nurses, and other organisations, particularly the specialty associations and the unions, sometimes take positions squarely against it. On staffing they openly differ: the association favours flexible, acuity-based standards, while National Nurses United campaigns for ratios fixed in law.
That disagreement is worth knowing before quoting either side as the view of nursing.
Related
- Nursing organizations
- American Nurses Credentialing Center
- Nursing ethics
- The nursing process
- Nurse practice acts and boards of nursing
Sources
- ANA history. American Nurses Association, for the 1896 founding, the original name and the 1911 renaming. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- About ANCC. American Nurses Credentialing Center, on its status as an ANA subsidiary. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Principles for nurse staffing. American Nurses Association. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Addressing nurse fatigue to promote safety and health. American Nurses Association. Accessed September 9, 2026.