This trip was an action packed 3 days of Task Force meetings, Legislative visits, leadership training and the Board Meeting. As always, I want to thank all of you in OSNA that have entrusted me to be your director to NASN. This is an honor that I cherish and please know that I continue to represent you at the national level.
Leadership
The leadership training reviewed a book entitled The Source that covers twelve principles that make a
good Board an exceptional one. We met in small groups to discuss each of these twelve principles and
how we see NASN’s Board. Overall, NASN does have an exceptional Board. Even though we are large we seem
to be efficient and effective. The work that Amy Garcia does as our executive Director is excellent and
many of the principles speak to the communication between the Board and the Executive Director. Is there
an openness of communication, does each party listen to the other, is the good of the organization forefront
in plans, is the financial information transparent, and are financial decisions made appropriately. We are
very fortunate to have Amy at the helm. She is a great advocate of school nursing. She is very savvy about
government affairs and she has hired a great staff. Chris Cephas, our CFO is wonderful. We always have a
working breakfast where Chris explains the finances of NASN and he makes it understandable.
We worked on the Strategic Plan as this is a living document. We also had a great presentation by our Parliamentarian who explained her role and offered more insight into how we can be a more effective Board.
Financial
Financially NASN is doing well and Amy and Chris are continually reviewing how we do business to make
prudent decisions. The Book store sales have been down but Amy explained that to keep sales up NASN
should publish three new titles per year. This has not been done for the past two years due to NASN’s
focus on other issues. One of these issues has been the closure of the Colorado office and the move to
Silver Spring, Maryland. The Maine office will be closing n August of this year. The other issue has
been recruitment and retention of members. Another cost saver is that the syllabus form the annual
conference will now be a CD and all handouts form the speakers will be on line two weeks prior to the
conference and for six months after.
Membership
Thirty-nine states have unified with NASN. NASN is working very hard to assist the other states to
also unify. Unfortunately, many members of the non-unified states do not see the benefits of belonging
to NASN and do not think it is cost effective. Some of these Directors that I spoke to said that they
don’t think their members will ever vote to unify. Other Directors note that their state has unified but
their membership has suffered because of it. The Director from New York noted that they since they
unified in 2006 they have lost 400 of their original 1200 members. This loss has been a huge financial
burden to their state organization, not to mention the lack of resources for those nurses that left.
Oregon unified in 2001 and our membership has grown.
NASN is looking at trends in how our members utilize the services provided. The website offers free CEU’s but they are not being accessed as well as they could be. There are two new CE offerings, one on Influenza and one on Advocacy. Each of these is being offered free to the first 2000 people that access them. As of yet, the 2000 person mark has not been met. NASN will look at this information to determine if future free sessions will be offered.
Membership costs have been evaluated and the 3 month grace period for membership renewal will be stopped. From now on, you must renew your membership on time to remain a member in good standing. Letting your membership lapse will prevent you from accessing the benefits that NASN offers.
To remind yourself of the benefits that NASN offers I invite you to visit the NASN web site. Look at the different sections and see the CE’s that are offered, the book store discounts, the Position Statements, Issue Briefs, web links and other tools that allow you to improve your practice. The Members Only section is a big benefit as are reduced conference fees. The Weekly Digest is now coming to all members via email.
There are new CE offerings being developed all the time. Currently there are CEs regarding care of children with special needs, disaster prep, prescription drug abuse and 10 on line diabetes modules, the first of which will be ready this spring. I am the only school nurse working with an incredible group of professionals to develop the prescription drug abuse offerings. This will include a supplement to the June Journal, an on line CE and presentations at the June conference.
Legislative
I met with staff people from the offices of Senator Wyden and Congresswoman Hooley. NASN provided each
of us with the Advocacy folders that I shared with you at our spring conference. In addition to the
formatted information in the packet I spoke with these people about Oregon legislation that NASN is
following such as an insurance plan for children bill and a healthy food bill. I also spoke to them
about NASN’s legislative priorities: Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, NASN requests language to
include school nursing; a HB to improve the nurse to student ratio; Medicaid and SCHIP funding and a Bill
that promotes child nutrition and school lunch protection. I then spoke about Oregon’s ratios, the need
for improved health care for children in our schools, and the need for better health insurance.
NCSN
The NCSN website has a Members only section now. The test is now offered on line and NASN is developing
a study guide that is expected to be ready by June.
Annual conference
I’ll end this report on a fun note. The annual conference will be June 28-July 1 in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. The conference registration books will come out next month and the Endowment Fund dinner
will be even more fun than last year. As an added bonus, our own Carol Cochran is the NASN School Nurse
of the Year. Carol will be recognized at the Awards Reception during the conference. If there are a lot
of you interested we can look into ways to make the trip more cost effective. You can triple up in rooms
and I am investigating the cost to charter a bus. The Kansas school nurses are doing this because they
have so many members interested.
I look forward to seeing all of you in April at our OSNA conference. The Washington County nurses are
working very hard to provide us with an excellent program. Thanks again for your support of my work and
please feel free to contact me whenever you have questions or concerns about NASN.
Paula Apa-Hall, RN, BSN, MEd, NCSN
April 20th, 2007
These are certainly busy days! I have been very busy with the
legislative testimony related to Senate Bill 1040 this week
more...