American Academy of Nursing

Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN
President, AAN


Academy Leadership - A Unique Opportunity for Making a Difference
Academy leaders serve several purposes: most importantly, they help keep the organization vital and robust. They also ensure that the Academy reaches strategic goals and objectives by employing well-designed tactical plans. The Academy could not exist without its volunteer leaders; accordingly, if you have not already done so, I encourage you to submit your own name or the names of other Academy Fellows to be considered for Academy leadership positions.

Open positions include:

President-Elect (one position for a two-year term)
Treasurer (one position for a two-year term)
Board of Directors (two positions, each for a two-year term)
Nominating Committee (two positions, each for a two-year term)
Fellow Selection Committee (four positions, each for a three-year term)

Submission forms are available on line at www.aannet.org. The submission deadline is April 2, 2007.

Throughout my years of volunteer leadership I have considered it an honor to represent the Academy. A few weeks ago, our CEO Pat Ford-Roegner, MSW, RN, FAAN, and I met with Senator Hillary Clinton's staff, promoting our Raise the Voice! Campaign. We underscored the central contributions of nursing leaders, including Edge Runners, who have implemented models of care delivery that hold great promise for transforming health care systems. My participation on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's steering committee for the Economics of Nursing and my attendance at the Foundation's March 4 and 5 Future of Nursing Meeting have provided valuable opportunities to build key partnerships that will better allow us to increase our impact. Supporting the nomination of Norma Lang, PhD, RN, FRCN, FAAN, to serve on the National Quality Forum's Board of Directors represents further evidence of the Academy's efforts to fortify crucial relationships and help position Fellows in venues where nursing voices can make a real difference.

As the national healthcare debates heat up, I have especially appreciated the chance to promote policies that help secure safe, accessible, affordable, and personalized health services for patients, families, and communities. As evidenced on the AAN Web site, our input - and our voice - have grown stronger. On March 7, the Academy co-sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing for congressional health staff focused on "Obesity In America." More recently, the Academy opposed the Food and Drug Administration's proposed cuts to the Office of Women's Health budget. Moreover, we just signed a letter from the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and other nursing organizations that strongly supports the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). As stated in the letter, "We believe that the reauthorization of a strong SCHIP program will sustain health insurance coverage for children, pregnant women and other family members currently enrolled."

At its July meeting, the Board of Directors will focus on the future, developing additional activities for implementing year two of our Strategic plan. As always, we welcome your ideas and recommendations. The Academy comprises outstanding leaders; when our collective experience, research, innovations, and perspectives are brought to bear on vexing health care problems and outmoded systems improvements are inevitable.

Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN
President

Key 2007 Dates and Links:

• Leadership Nominations: Due April 2
• Living Legends Nominations: Due April 20
• AAN/ANF/IOM Scholar Applications: Due April 27
• Nurse Leader Award in Aging Nominations: Due May 1
• Honorary Fellow Nominations: Due May 4
• Call for Media Award Submissions: March (Deadline for submissions July)
• Reports of Committees, Commissions, Taskforces, and other AAN Representatives:
  • Due June 12, 2007 (for July Board Meeting)
  • Due September 21, 2007 (will be published and shared with the Fellowship at the November Annual Meeting)
• Online report template
• Annual Meeting and Conference: "Breaking Barriers: Changing Policy and Practice with Evidence," November 8-10, 2007 (JW Marriott Washington DC)
• Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science Special Topics Conferences: "Practice-Based Evidence: Another Side of the Knowledge Development Coin"
• October 24, 2007 (Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington DC)
  • Information: http://www.nursingscience.org/meetings/conference2007/

Forgot Login? A New Web Site Tool:
In February, 2007, we added a feature to the AAN Web site to help Fellows if they forget their login info. After you enter/submit your email address, as long as the email address entered matches the one in our database, the system will automatically email you your username and password. We hope this tool saves you time.

New AAN Bylaws:
In January, we sent Fellows a ballot with three bylaws revisions, all of which passed. You may find the current version of the bylaws, which include the three revisions, on the Fellows-only page of our Web site here.

Expert Panels:
New Expert Panel!
In November, 2006, the AAN Board of Directors responded to a motion from the 2007 Business Meeting regarding the possible resurrection of the former Expert Panel on AIDS/HIV. The Fellowship and Board agreed that our Expert Panels should have a broad focus rather than focus on one disease. The Board deliberated and agreed to allow the formation of a new Expert Panel on Emerging and Infectious Diseases. This new Expert Panel is co-chaired by Felissa R. Lashley, RN, PhD, ACRN, FACMG, FAAN and Jerry D. Durham, PhD,RN, FAAN. We look forward to their progress reports.

Coming Soon: Listserves for all Expert Panels!
In January, 2006, the AAN Board of Directors reviewed a few requests for Expert Panel listserves to allow them to better communicate with one-another. The Board feels that the important work of our Expert Panels is critical to the continued success and growth of our organization, and agreed to provide listserves to each Expert Panel at no cost to the Panels' budgets. Staff will be contacting each Expert Panel chair during the second quarter of 2007 to begin set up of these listserves.

AAN Policy on Smoke-free Meetings
On Friday, January 26, 2007, the AAN Board of Directors responded to a motion from the Fellowship and adopted the following resolution:

"All meetings and conferences not yet contracted/confirmed, organized and/or primarily sponsored by The American Academy of Nursing, be held in a town, city, county, or state that has enacted comprehensive legislation requiring smoke-free worksites and public places (including restaurants and bars), unless intended or existing contracts or special circumstances justify an exception to this policy."

Update Your Contact Information:
Please remember to update your contact information any time on our Web site: www.aannet.org.

Full Headquarters' Operations Report:
Please see the full 2007 First Quarter Headquarters' Operations report here.

---

Greetings From the AAN Washington Policy Office


The Policy Office has been working closely with AAN President Linda Burnes Bolton, the AAN Board of Directors, the Policy Work Group, Expert Panels, and the various Commissions and Task Forces; we are moving ahead to seize strategic opportunities for the Academy to impact national health policy.

The Academy staff is hard at work to operationalize the AAN strategic plan approved by the AAN Board of Directors at the November 2006 meeting after considerable consultation with Academy Fellows and adoption at the Annual Business meeting.

On the policy front we are doing this in several ways:

• Implementing the communication plan for the Raise the Voice campaign
• Developing strategic partnerships
• Identifying targeted areas for possible briefing papers
• Sponsoring selected briefings on Capitol Hill based on the current work of the Academy and the strategic plan

I urge you to take a few moments and read the Raise the Voice section on the AAN Web site. Please check back for regular updates. Soon we will move forward in announcing the full complement of our Advisory Committee, Chaired by the Honorable Donna Shalala. The AAN Board of Directors approved hiring a public affairs consultant during the first year of the campaign to promote campaign's message and strongest examples of Edge Runners, who are transforming the health care system from the nursing lens.

AAN President Linda Burnes Bolton and I have been having meetings with key leaders and staff of such organizations as the AARP, National Women's Law Center, and Health Affairs to name a few. AAN was well represented as both presenters and attendees at the prestigious 2007 National Health Policy Conference in Washington, DC sponsored by Academy Health and Health Affairs. This annual event brings together key congressional health leaders, policy and health services research leaders, professional organizations leaders, and practitioners to discuss timely issues and to set the stage for potential battles in Congress and the administration during the year and beyond. Linda Burnes Bolton and I met with Academy Health CEO and President David Helms more recently to discuss how we might work more closely on issues of mutual interest such as health services research, coordination of care models, and how to reduce the demands on the current health care workforce.

On March 7, 2007, the AAN co-sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing for all congressional health staff. The topic was Obesity in America Trends, Federal Action, State and Local Solutions which ties into the work of AAN Task Force on Disparities.

Liz Parry, the AAN Special Assistant for Policy, has been working closely with the Child-Family Expert Panel around the issues facing the reauthorization and future funding of the State Children's Health Insurance Program known as SCHIP. She has been engaged in dialogue with the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) and the Coalition for the Uninsured. Please look for further action on this issue.

We have joined forces with other nurse leaders to restore funds for nursing education and advanced nursing, which the Bush administration proposed cutting in the 2008 budget, and to increase funding for nursing research.

We continue to seek high level AAN fellow appointments to key health policy organizations both inside and outside of government. This is just a flavor of the work of your Washington office, and I urge you to continue your communication with the offices of AAN.

Pat Ford-Roegner, CEO, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Science (HCGNE) is dedicated to facilitating state-of-the-science aging research, education, and practice. Its mission is to improve the care of frail vulnerable older adults across all settings, with specific goals to expand the science of geriatric care; develop and evaluate innovations in care; disseminate evidence-based best practices; and strengthen educational programs and partnerships. The Center provides information on geriatric issues and trends shaping research, education, and practice. Initially Penn's HCGNE was funded by a 5-year John A. Hartford Foundation grant. Subsequently, this grant was renewed for an additional 5-years to sustain efforts to leverage scientific interests and skills aimed at the individualized care of at-risk older adults; expand mentorship efforts beyond Penn's institution and gerontologic scholars, enhance existing educational initiatives with a special focus on palliative care and gero-psychiatric nursing, continue interdisciplinary and community partnerships, translate research into evidence-based practice, and assure sustainability of the HCGNE with an appropriate infrastructure.

The HCGNE is comprised of 20 standing faculty, 18 associated faculty, and 12 practice affiliates. These faculty and associate members make substantive contributions to research, education and practice. Faculty have secured $14.3 million in extramural and pilot grants to support advancement of research translation in palliative care, psychiatric mental health, cultural change in long-term care, gero-oncology, symptom management, quality of life, decision support, care transitions, and geriatric trauma care since 2001. These efforts support knowledge acquisition and the discovery of evidence-based benchmarks that create older adult care intervention solutions.

HCGNE faculty have provided training and mentorship support for a total of 28 pre-doctoral and eleven post-doctoral fellows with interests in aging. The John A. Hartford Foundation scholarship resources have supported 8 MSN students in the Gerontology Nurse Practitioner Program, 1 Wharton Masters in Business Administration student, 10 pre-doctoral, and 8 post-doctoral scholars. The HCGNE was instrumental in securing four additional scholarship programs to support geriatric Masters level education. The AACN/JAHF "Creating Careers in Geriatric Advanced Practice Nursing", Evercare, Penn- Beverly Healthcare Scholarship/Internship Program, and the Gail Kass Honorary Endowed Fellowship in Gerontological Nursing Excellence. The scholarship programs enhance our capacity to develop, build, and sustain careers in geriatrics, providing resources to candidates pursuing advanced degrees in gerontology, health administration, health leadership, and adult nursing specialties. These scholarships provide, at a minimum, tuition and fee support. The scholarship programs attract outstanding students. Partnership dialogue is ongoing to develop a shared mentorship and coordination structure to support expanded mentorship efforts beyond our institution and scholars.

The Center's successful dissemination of research, gerontological curriculum design, and promotion of innovative evidence based practice models have been enhanced by 344 publications, 209 presentations and 44 national awards from productive faculty over the past six years. In conjunction with faculty dissemination efforts, the Center designed a sophisticated comprehensive website with a structure that provides ease of access to research, education and practice.
http://www.nursing.upenn.edu/centers/hcgne/ The website design provides the following features: current scholarship of Center members/affiliates; descriptions of exportable care innovations; details for accessing the services of the Penn Nursing Consultation Service; and research & practice tools. End user visits average 15, 000 annually. This electronic dissemination venue facilitates accessing a worldwide audience.

The Center is equally committed to building geriatric nursing leadership and capacity to address the demand for older adult health care. Designated Center faculty participate in the development of unique educational and practice options including palliative care and adult home care minors.

To enhance existing educational initiatives in palliative care and gero-psychiatric nursing, two primary initiatives were pursued. The Palliative Care Minor was developed, designed to prepare students for the ever-increasing demands for skills in palliative care and end of life care. The curriculum focuses on advanced illness, dying and death and managing life-threatening illness from a palliative care perspective. Currently, we are working on an advanced palliative care continuing education program with the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the Wissahickon Hospice, and the School of Medicine. The Center is also actively committed to improve gero-psychiatric nursing care for older adults. As an integral part of this proposed national initiative, the HCGNE provides leadership in partnership with two other HCGNEs (Iowa and Arkansas).

The influence of the HCGNE on practice is evident at many levels, including individual care, public and private providers and insurers, and in health policy. The CGNS supports nurse-managed academic practice settings that enhance gerontological clinical experiences and create supportive clinical research environments. These settings contribute to the development of research based practice guidelines. To stimulate the creation of innovative practice models of care, the Center maintains strong affiliated linkages with the LIFE (Living Independently For Elders) Program (which is a national PACE program), Penn Nursing Consultation Service (PNCS), and numerous community partnerships, including a continuing care retirement community which provides annual support for pilot research in the centers.

Contribute to the 2007 Annual Fund Now - Read letter from Linda Groah, RN, MS, FAAN, Chair of the AAN Annual Fund Committee.
 

Submitted by Margaret Comerford Freda, EdD, RN, CHES, FAAN

If you have news you wish to share in the next Fellows On the Move, please email it to Margaret Comerford Freda at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In January 2007, the Clinical Care Classification (CCC) nursing terminology, developed at Georgetown University by Virginia K. Saba, EdD, RN, FAAN, FACMI and colleagues, was accepted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Michael Leavitt as a named standard within the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) Interoperability Specification for Electronic Health Records, Biosurveillance and Consumer Empowerment.

Judith Gedney Baggs, PhD, RN, FAAN, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing and Editor of Research in Nursing & Health, will be receiving a Circle of Excellence in Research award from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses at their National Teaching Institute in Atlanta in May, 2007.

Suzanne C. Smeltzer, EdD, RN, FAAN, Professor and Director of the Center
for Nursing Research at Villanova University, was recently the recipient of the 2006 Villanova University Faculty Research Award, the 2006 Service Award of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Greater Delaware Valley Chapter, and a 2006 Inglis Award for Innovation.

Nancy C. Sharts-Hopko, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor and Director of the Doctoral Program at Villanova University College of Nursing, is the recipient of the 2006 Villanova University Service Award.

The 7th edition of Maternity Nursing by Deitra Lowdermilk, RN, PhD, FAAN, Clinical Professor, School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Shannon Perry, RN, PhD, FAAN, Professor Emerita, San Francisco State University, and the first edition of Clinical Companion to Maternity Nursing, were published in 2006 by Elsevier. Dr. Perry also spent 2 weeks in September in Kisumu, Kenya, as part of a surgical mission. She scrubbed for cataract removals and other ophthalmologic surgery (the first time she had scrubbed for surgery since her senior year in nursing school in 1959!).

Hollie Shaner McRae MSA, RN, FAAN, Coordinator of Professional Nursing Practice for Geltcher Allen Health Care, Vermont, served as study coordinator this fall for the research pilot study on "Workplace Wellness Tai Chi Offering - A Description of the Older Nurse Participants," conducted with staff nurses from Fletcher Allen Health Care, Burlington, Vermont.

Tim Porter-O'Grady, EdD, RN, CNAA, CS, FAAN, a nationally recognized leader in health care, has been named a visiting professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. He will be teaching in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program and working with faculty and administrators on curriculum development.

Felissa R. Lashley, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean and Professor at the College of Nursing at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has authored a book for nursing students, faculty and practicing nurses on genetics and how it affects nursing and health titled, "Essentials of Clinical Genetics in Nursing Practice," published by Springer Publishing Co. Dr. Lashley is certified as a PhD medical geneticist by the American Board of Medical Genetics - the first nurse to be so certified - and is a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics. She began her practice of genetic evaluation and counseling in 1973.

Victoria L. Rich, PhD, RN, FAAN, Assistant Dean of Clinical Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, was named the newly created Chief Nurse Executive for the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center Campus. Dr. Rich will oversee the practice of nursing and the nursing care for patients at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania (CPUP), and Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Dr. Rich has been Chief Nursing Officer for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for five years. She will continue to serve as the Assistant Dean of Clinical Practice in the Penn School of Nursing.

Lenore H. Kurlowicz, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN will become an Associate Professor of Geropsychiatric Nursing-Clinician Educator, and Terri E. Weaver, PhD, FAAN, RN will be Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing effective July 1, 2007.

Fannie Gaston-Johansson, PhD, RN, FAAN, Elsie M. Lawler Endowed Chair and Director of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing Center for Health Disparities, will now lead the faculty in the Acute and Chronic Care Department. She also leads the Global Health Promotion Research Program, an international, interdisciplinary research/educational program that attracts nursing, medical, public health, and arts and sciences students from universities throughout the country.

Victoria Mock, PhD, RN, FAAN has been promoted to chair the new department of Health Systems and Outcomes at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She also leads the school's National Institutes of Health funded Center for Collaborative Intervention Research and serves as director of nursing research at the Kimmel Cancer Center.

Phyllis W. Sharps, PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing will now head the department of Community and Public Health. Her research targets underserved audiences and she is currently the principal investigator on a multi-million dollar National Institute of Nursing Research community-based study aimed at helping at risk pregnant women and their infants.

During the spring 2007 semester, the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing will host Ada Sue Hinshaw, PhD, RN, FAAN and Karlene Kerfoot, PhD, RN, CNAA, FAAN as visiting professors. Dr. Hinshaw's research interests include quality of care, patient outcomes, measurement of such outcomes and building positive work environments for nurses because of the impact on patient safety. Dr. Kerfoot is Principal of Kerfoot and Associates, Inc., an Indianapolis-based consulting firm that works in the areas of patient safety, strategic planning, Magnet education, recruitment and retention redesign, executive coaching and redesigning of patient care structures.

Julie A. Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Associate Professor of Nursing and Director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, was awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research in December 2006. This award provides support for writing a book that documents the history of American nursing from 1975 to the present. She is one of only two nurses to receive this award.

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) has announced that Pamela Hinds, PhD, RN, FAAN is the recipient of its 2007 Leading the Way Award. The award was presented at the AAHPM/HPNA Annual Assembly on February 15, 2007 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The award recognizes a nursing leader who has demonstrated a deep and abiding commitment to furthering the philosophy, mission, and quality of palliative care. Dr. Hinds is Director of the Division of Nursing Research at St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where she is also Co-Facilitator for the St. Jude Palliative Care Initiative and Co-Chair for the Hematology/Oncology Fellow Mentoring Committee.

The Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses, AORN, has named Linda K. Groah, MSN, RN, CNOR, CNAA, FAAN as the new Executive Director/CEO for the Association. Ms. Groah has held a variety of positions including Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nurse Executive at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, Director of Nursing OR-PACU at the University of California San Francisco Hospitals and Clinics, and Director of Operating Rooms at the Medical Center of Central Georgia. She currently holds Assistant Clinical Professor and Visiting Faculty positions at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing and the San Francisco State University Department of Nursing, respectively.
 

Baltimore, Md. - Debra L. Spunt, DNP, MS, RN, FAAN, an assistant professor and director of the Clinical Simulation Laboratories at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, died of cancer March 9 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Baltimore. She was 50 years old. (Read More)

 

All Fellows are invited to regularly submit a brief article for the AAN pages in Nursing Outlook about your work or the work of other AAN Fellows. It is imperative that we keep others informed of what AAN Fellows are doing at the local, state, national and international levels. When possible, please include how this work relates to health policy. It is also important to inform others of how they can help your efforts or how to become involved.

To facilitate the article, the Communication and Publicity Committee has developed templates on Leadership, Research, Health Policy and Expert Panel work. Articles only need to be 500-1000 words in length. Please feel free to complete any of these templates, add any other pertinent information and submit to one of the committee members below.
 

May/Jun Issue	March 20, 2007
Jul/Aug Issue	May 20, 2007
Sept/Oct Issue	July 20, 2007
Nov/Dec Issue	September 20, 2007

Communication and Publicity Committee
(Article Submission Subcommittee)
Donna Zazworsky, Chair   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Marilyn Rantz   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Franklin Shaffer   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Elizabeth Porter   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Michael Kremer   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Marion Good   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Margaret Comerford Freda   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Gail Melkus, Expert Panel CAPC Liaison   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

1st Quarter (March Issue)	Submission Deadline January 20
2nd Quarter (June Issue)	Submission Deadline April 20
3rd Quarter (September Issue)	Submission Deadline July 20
4th Quarter (December Issue)	Submission Deadline October 20

All advertisements will appear in one quarterly issue.

Advertising Rates:
AAN Fellows: $100
Non-Fellows: $150
Payable via check, VISA, or MASTERCARD.

Send your advertisement request/purchase order and payment to:
American Academy of Nursing
555 East Wells Street, Suite 1100
Milwaukee, WI 53202

E-mail your advertisement copy to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Please provide your ad copy in Word or pdf format and try to limit it to a few pages. Please include logos or other camera-ready artwork. Your ad will appear as a headline on the right side of the E-Newsletter, and the headline will link to your full ad.

Spotlight on the Academy is published quarterly.