ANA Hill Day!

Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues!
I hope you all are doing well and having a lovely first week of July!
This past June, I was delighted to have the opportunity to bring greetings on behalf of NSNA to the American Nurses Association’s 11th Annual Membership Assembly.
Prior to the beginning of the Membership Assembly, ANA held their annual Hill Day in Washington D.C., where nurses from all over the United States (and some students, including me) were able to visit federal legislators and present policies and bills that ANA is hoping to pass for the future of nursing. ANA was asking legislators to support the following:

• Improving Care and Access to Nurses (ICAN) Act (H.R. 2713): This bipartisan act that would remove outdated barriers in Medicare and Medicaid programs that currently prevent Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) from practicing to the full extent of their education. This bill does not supersede state laws or change any provider’s scope of practice. Currently, a coalition of 230 organizations support this bill while less than 100, including the American Medical Association, are against it. For example, this bill would allow Nurse Practitioners (NPs) to refer to a podiatrist to get diabetic shoes. Currently, a NP has to refer an existing patient to a physician (a doctor that does not know the patient or their history) to refer to a podiatrist. 
• Understanding the Value of Nurses and Health Care Worker Burnout: We all know more nurses want to leave the profession than stay in it and the current demand is too high for the incoming nursing students. Not only is burnout an issue because of the shortage, but nurses are also unsafe in their work environments due to workplace violence, are treated as resources, feel overwhelmed, have unsafe workloads, and do not feel valued. Healthcare workers are five times more likely to be assaulted in their workplace. Legislators were urged to support and pass the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 2663 / S.1176), which would require the Department of Labor (DOL) to issue an interim, and later final, occupational safety and health standard that requires employers to take actions to protect nurses and other health care workers from workplace violence. 
• National Nursing Workforce Center Act (S.1150 / H.R. 2411): This bill would create a 2-year pilot program enabling existing state nursing workforce centers to boost local nursing workforces and better evaluate the recruitment and retention of nurses. States without nursing workforce centers will be able to establish one to respond to both nursing workforce and community needs. Workforce centers gather data on supply, demand, and the educational pipeline of nurses while also collecting data and testing solutions to nurse faculty shortages. This bill enables local experts to identify and address unique challenges to improve the strength of the nursing workforce.
• Addressing the Nurse Staffing Crisis: As we all know, insufficient nurse staffing and workplace violence jeopardizes patient safety and quality outcomes. This also affects nurse retention and recruitment. ANA urged Congress to improve nurse staffing and the work environment for healthcare personnel through the following:
  • Enact legislation to prohibit mandatory overtime for nurses.
  • Require OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to issue a national health care workplace violence standard.
  • Implement nurse staffing standards to ensure nurses have the time and resources they need to deliver quality care and positive patient outcomes.

ANA Hill Day was such a wonderful experience that I will never forget! I was able to speak about these issues with legislators and attended meetings with legislative staff with a group of leaders from ANA-NY, including President of ANA-NY, Dr. Marilyn L. Dollinger, DNS, FNP, RN. Students will have the chance to connect with Dr. Dollinger during NSNA's FREE Annual Advocacy Education Day on October 18th!
Stay tuned for part two of the ANA Membership Assembly!
See the attached links for more information on the bills and policies ANA presented to legislators.

Yours in service and signing off for now,
Lauren

From left to right: Tara Shajan, Treasurer of the National Association of Indian Nurses of America, Kimberly Velez (Director-at-Large on ANA-NY), Jacob, a staff member of Hakeem Jeffries (NY), me, and Dr. Patricia Lavin from New York University (NYU) Hospital.

From left to right: Dr. Marilyn Dollinger, President of ANA-NY, me, and Dr. Jeanine Santelli, Executive Director of ANA-NY