The post How Closely Do Idaho’s RN Graduates Reflect the State’s Diversity? appeared first on Campaign for Action.

We are pleased to present an array of speakers working every day to build a healthier Idaho.  You will learn about innovative partnerships between Boise State University and Idaho government and communities. These alliances integrate health, business, nursing, social services, government agencies, and education in approaches that promote a sustainable culture of health and that provide educational opportunities for students who will have an impact on the future.

In addition to offering the great opportunities at the conference to share common learnings and goals, we encourage you to take some nice walks along the Boise River or through the many parks near the BSU campus. We are proud of our state, of Boise State University, of our beautiful capital city, and of our efforts to build a culture of health; and we are anxious to share them all with you.

Welcome to Boise!

Randall Hudspeth, PhD, MBA, MS, APRN-CNP, FAANP
Executive Director, Idaho Alliance of Leaders in Nursing and Idaho Nursing Action Coalition

Tim Dunnagan, EdD
Dean, College of Health Sciences, Boise State University

Kenneth Petersen, PhD
Dean, College of Business and Economics, Boise State University

The post Welcome to Boise appeared first on Campaign for Action.

• Learn how Action Coalitions are collaborating with diverse stakeholders to build a Culture of Health in their states.
• Develop strategic thinking to find new allies to work with to build a Culture of Health.
• Strengthen connections with longtime partners through Culture of Health work.
• Showcase how nurses are active participants in Culture of Health work.
• Communicate more easily and effectively about a Culture of Health.

The first workshops were in New Mexico and Wisconsin.

Welcome From the Idaho Action Coalition

Welcome to Boise, Idaho, and to Boise State University, for one of three Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action 2017 workshops focusing on continued work to implement the Institute of Medicine recommendations, and to build a Culture of Health in communities across the nation. The Idaho Nursing Action Coalition and Boise State University are excited to co-host this meeting and anxious to share our work and successes in these endeavors, as well as hear of progress others are making.

read more

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

The post Idaho is Gathering Place for Final of Three Workshops appeared first on Campaign for Action.

• Distribution of population by race/ethnicity
• Percentage of population living in rural versus urban areas
• Distribution of population by federal poverty level
• Areas in which there is a shortage of primary health professionals

These statistics can guide your Action Coalition’s work in shaping a nursing workforce to better meet local needs and overcoming health disparities in your state. As you integrate other Culture of Health aspects into your work, consider how demographics play a role in health equity and fostering cross-sector collaboration.

The post Demographic and Workforce Facts appeared first on Campaign for Action.

The purpose of the meeting was threefold:

1. continue the work in progress to advance towards Idaho’s goal of reaching 80% BSN by 2020,
2. critique the draft strategic plan for nursing in Idaho, and
3. plan the development of the 2016 Idaho Nursing Overview, in partnership the Idaho Department of Labor and the Idaho Board of Nursing, which features supply, demand and educational workforce data.

Jenny Landen, MSN, RN, FNP-BC from New Mexico presented on the strategy to create community college and university partnerships that offer a BSN on community college campuses statewide. Participants also heard about an existing hospital, community college and university partnership in Idaho that has begun a dual enrollment model to facilitate academic progression. A representative from the State Board of Education was present for both days and offered clarification about board policies and the potential for stronger future partnerships. Work that is currently underway in hospitals and schools to increase the specialty nurse workforce was shared, and a representative from the Idaho Department of Labor provided information about future grant opportunities to address these workforce shortages.

Six workgroups were identified in order to advance the plan over the next year. Those workgroups will address:

1. developing industry/education partnerships to address the specialty workforce shortage
2. Articulating “Why a BSN Prepared Workforce
3. Developing a nursing program consolidated advising website
4. Increasing financial resources for AD to BSN students
5. Working to streamline academic progression through curriculum
6. Continued projection of the % BSN workforce data.

Over the next months, these workgroups will convene and begin their work with the support of the Idaho Nursing Action Coalition.

The post Idaho Celebrates, Continues to Move Forward at its Strategic Summit appeared first on Campaign for Action.

The post APRN Barriers to Practice in Idaho: Survey Results and Recommendations appeared first on Campaign for Action.

Deploying a rapid response team is one of six strategies that the Institute for Healthcare Improvement recommends to prevent avoidable deaths. It is designed to intervene when a patient’s condition starts to worsen but before he or she experiences cardiac arrest.

When Reuss raised her concerns, the two physicians on the board also voiced their support for rapid response teams. The board subsequently voted to make cuts in other areas and keep rapid response teams at the hospital.

For Reuss, a faculty member at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction and a member of the Colorado Action Coalition, this incident epitomized why she pursued hospital board leadership.

“Board decisions often are made without considering the perspective of people who are in the trenches,” she said. “Nurses represent the voice of the patient advocate.”

Reuss stepped off the board in 2013 due to term limits. However, the hospital CEO asked for her input in choosing her successor to the board.

“The board saw the importance of having a nurse voice at the table,” she said. “They felt the need to replace me with another nurse.”

She suggested three people, all of whom had leadership experience in professional nursing organizations and community involvement. They chose a nurse with prior board experience with other community organizations.

The truth, however, is that few nurses serve on boards: the American Hospital Association estimates that nurses fill 6 percent of board seats, compared with 20 percent for physicians. A landmark Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, called on nurses to take on greater leadership roles.

The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, a joint initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and AARP, has made getting nurses on boards a priority. Action Coalitions in all 50 states and the District of Columbia are working to place nurses on health-related and community boards. To date, Action Coalitions have reported placing 268 nurses on boards.

The Campaign, in partnership with 20 leading nursing organizations, has set an ambitious goal to place 10,000 nurses on boards by 2020.

Margaret Henbest, a nurse practitioner who was appointed by Idaho Governor Butch Otter to serve on the Idaho Health Insurance Exchange Board, believes that nurses “often don’t recognize what they bring to the table in terms of power and influence. They should see themselves walking through the door with huge credibility and should build on it.”

Henbest, who also serves as the Idaho Action Coalition co-lead, did not deliberately pursue leadership. She became active in policy and leadership in the 1980s and 1990s as part of the Idaho Nurse Association’s efforts to expand scope of practice for nurse practitioners. When reform was being discussed in the legislature, she showed up to articulate the nurses’ viewpoint.

Eventually, she started to get invited to meetings. She ran for office and served in the Idaho House of Representatives from 1996 until she decided not to seek re-election in 2008.

Henbest believes she was appointed to the Idaho Health Insurance Exchange Board, which is tasked with setting the rules and regulations for implementing a state-based exchange under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), because of her experience in the state legislature.

As a nurse, Henbest feels that she brings good knowledge of the health care delivery system, a good understanding that having health insurance causes people to access care differently, patient advocacy, and teamwork and communications skills.

The biggest challenge of being on the Idaho Health Insurance Exchange Board, according to Henbest, is the task of implementing a Democratic piece of legislation in a Republican state, even though the Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill enabling a state-based exchange.

She attributes the board’s leadership and staff commitment to helping them garner the third highest enrollment rate in the country per capita.

Having health insurance “is changing people’s lives, and people are becoming happy with their insurance,” she said. “Public opposition is gradually lessening.”

Liane Connelly, PhD, MSN, RN, is putting her knowledge of the healthcare system and strategic delivery to work as a new board member of the Good Samaritan Society, the nation’s largest not-for-profit provider of senior care and services, with more than 240 centers across the United States.

As one of two nurses on the 16-member board, Connelly has helped the Good Samaritan Society pursue strategic planning to better position itself to take advantage of changes under the ACA that will govern how care is delivered to older adults.

Connelly, who is an assistant dean and associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center – College of Nursing and the Nebraska Action Coalition Co-Chair for Education, encourages nurses who are interested in pursuing board positions to “put yourself out there. Nurses have expertise; they bring a whole wealth of information that is not public knowledge about patients and populations.”

The post Nurse Leaders Bring Knowledge of Clinical Care and Other Skills to Board Rooms appeared first on Campaign for Action.

In Idaho, Margaret Wainwright Henbest, RN, MSN, CPNP, executive director of the Idaho Alliance for Leaders in Nursing, is one of 19 officials—and the only nurse—on the board of Your Health Idaho, the health insurance exchange in the Gem State.

A former state lawmaker, Henbest was appointed to the position earlier this year after legislation creating the exchange was approved by the state legislature. She is also former co-lead of the Idaho Action Coalition which, like the other Action Coalitions, is working to transform the nursing profession and improve health and health care.

Action Coalitions are now in place in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and are the driving force behind the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. One of the key goals of the Campaign is to develop more nurse leaders so they can play a significant role in the redesign of the nation’s health care system.

Henbest, for her part, is thrilled to represent her profession on the exchange. “I think it’s really important to have somebody who’s knowledgeable about the health care system and who also has a strong consumer focus,” she said. “Nurses are really pretty unique in their ability to do that. They understand consumer needs and the health care system in a sophisticated manner.”

Nurse leaders on exchanges serve another function—as role models for other nurses, said Deborah Gardner, PhD, RN, FNAP, immediate past executive director of the Hawaii State Center for Nursing and immediate past co-lead of the Hawaii Action Coalition. “When nurses lead in the policy arena, other nurses take notice and are exposed to the possibilities.”

Gardner sees that happening in Hawaii, where Coral Andrews, FACHE, MBA, RN, the former vice president of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii and a member of the Hawaii Action Coalition, is serving as executive director of the Hawaii insurance exchange.

The Hawaii Health Connector, in fact, is stocked with nurses. Clementina Ceria-Ulep, PhD, MSN, RN, an associate professor and department chair at the University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene, serves on the group’s board of directors, and another nurse is one of the group’s program specialists. Gardner, meanwhile, is working to educate consumers about the Hawaii exchange.

A Valuable Commodity

A background in nursing is a valuable commodity in health care reform, Andrews said. “Nurses are systems thinkers, educators, and consensus builders,” she said, noting that those skills have helped her garner broad stakeholder support for the Hawaii exchange. “Over the past 30 years, as a nurse, I have been exposed to diverse environments. I am able to leverage that and apply it in one environment focused on improving the health and well-being of our community.”

In Texas, the federal government is responsible for launching the state’s new insurance marketplace, but nurses are monitoring it and discussing opportunities to educate nurses and other health care professionals about the information available to them there, according to Alexia Green, PhD, RN, FAAN, a board member of the Texas Institute of Health Care Quality and Efficiency and co-lead of the “Texas Team,” the state’s Action Coalition.

In Idaho and Hawaii, Henbest and Andrews are devoting their energies to getting their respective exchanges up and running in time for applicants to enroll over the months following the Oct. 1 launch.

They expect to be able to put their expertise as nurses to good use. In Idaho, the inclusion of advanced practice registered nurses in provider networks, and payment and coverage for case management, care coordination, and patient education may come under consideration in the future, Henbest said.

Andrews also cited payment reform as an issue she may address as her exchange’s executive director, and anticipates a role for nurses in consumer education and outreach.

“Health literacy is critical to enabling consumers to be empowered in their own decision-making,” Andrews said. “Nurses as educators can play an important role in this area.”

This story appeared in the November 2013 issue of Advancing Health: News from the Campaign for Action.

The post Nurses Take Leadership Roles on New Insurance Exchanges appeared first on Campaign for Action.