The AJN Podcast

Practical Guide to Legislative Change as a Registered Nurse Learn about what level of government would make the changes you want to see. Find out: is this a federal, state, or local issue? Federal government example: Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) reimbursement rates for advanced practice nurses State government example: Scope of practice for advanced practice nurses   Figure out WHO are the elected officials that represent you at that level of government because you are their constituent. It is their job to listen to your concerns! Best website: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials  Federal legislators: One U.S. House of Representatives member (representing your congressional district, where you live in the state) and two senators (represent the entire state, not just your district) State legislators: State house representative and state senator (typically both represent a district within your state) Local officials:County/City Executive/Supervisor/Commissioners, etc.   Learn about your elected officials! For example, to learn more about your U.S. House member, look them up at https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative. Select their name to bring you to their personal House.gov website, which includes the member’s committee assignments and their office’s contact information. Federal legislators will have at least two offices; one in Washington, DC, and one or more within the congressional district itself. Each office has federal congressional staffers working to address constituents’ concerns and provide official follow-up. There are options to call, fax, e-mail, or speak with staff in-person. Within the district office, these staff members typically include a constituent service representative. A U.S. House member specifically represents your district’s needs (including you as a constituent) to Congress more so than U.S. Senators, as they represent your entire state’s needs.    If you are interested in a state issue, please be aware that state representatives and senators are “part-time” legislators.  State legislative bodies typically meet in the first months of the year but occasionally are called back for special sessions. This website shows upcoming state legislative schedules: https://documents.ncsl.org/wwwncsl/About-State-Legislatures/2024-sessions-calendar.pdf Your state should have similar websites for its representatives and senators. These elected officials will likely have an office in your state’s capitol and within the district where staffers are available to address constituent concerns.    It is important to be aware of your legislator’s committee assignments and if they serve in any kind of leadership role. Do they sit on a health committee? Are they the chair of a committee? Committee assignments often are related to the member’s legislative areas of expertise and related to their professional background before running for elected office.  Committees will be the first place legislative change will be introduced, debated, and voted on before coming to the full legislative body. Sadly, many bills “die” in committee and thus, support from these smaller groups is needed first!   Many organizations develop a form letter for you to send to a legislator regarding an issue or a specific bill.  These are helpful but please be aware that if you cut/paste, sign, and send, your letter will be placed in a pile with the rest; depending on the size of the pile of form letters about one issue, this will impact how much attention the office and the elected official gives to a certain topic.  Please take 5-10 minutes to personalize the form letter with your own experiences and always make sure to include in the first sentence that you are a constituent of the elected official (and maybe if you voted for them). Talk about how the congressional district is impacted by the issue specifically. Provide your background as a nurse and your contact information so the legislative staff may follow up with you about your experience and your expertise on the subject.   Reach out to nursing organizations that may already be advocating for this issue.They may have a legislative “champion” that has sponsored bills in the past and is helping to move towards progress on this issue. Some nursing organizations are allowed to hire lobbyists, and some organizations cannot because of their tax filing statuses. Some nursing organizations have political action committees (PACs) that raise money to impact legislation.  Nursing organizations can come together into coalitions in an effort to move forward complex legislative issues.   Get to know your legislators as individuals. Often this happens by volunteering your time to help them out. Frequently during campaign season.  Volunteering is easy and fun. The campaign provides you with all the training and materials. You just provide your time and enthusiasm. Examples: Phone banking (making phone calls to constituents), door knocking (walking around neighborhoods in the district, knocking on doors to offer information about the individual or leaving a hanger on their doorknob if not home or available), or different forms of fundraisers.

In this episode of The AJN Podcast, Susan O’Hara, PhD, MPH, RN, BA, EDAC, FNIHD, discusses the role of nurses in design and the impact they make on patient care and nurse safety.

In this episode of The AJN Podcast, Kerry A. Milner, DNSc, APRN, FNP-BC, EBP-C, and Ellen Fineout-Overholt, PhD, RN, EBP-C, FNAP, FAAN discuss the role of evidence-based decision making in nursing education and patient care. Milner and Fineout-Overholt share details on AJN’s new Evidence-Based Decision Making series, and the first article in the series, “Cultivating an Evidence-Based Decision-Making Mindset,” which can be found in the February issue and online at https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/fulltext/2024/02000/cultivating_an_evidence_based_decision_making.20.aspx. Below is the article’s full list of authors: Kerry A. Milner is a professor in the Davis and Henley College of Nursing at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. Deana Hays is an associate professor at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Susan Farus-Brown is an associate professor at the Ohio University School of Nursing in Athens. Mary C. Zonsius is an associate professor at the Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago. Ellen Fineout-Overholt is national senior director, Evidence-Based Practice & Implementation Science, at Ascension in St. Louis. Contact author: Kerry A. Milner, milnerk@sacredheart.edu.

NP, entrepreneur, and professor, Gabrielle Abelard, DNP, PMHNP, PMHCNS-BC, APRN, FNAP, FAAN, joins The AJN Podcast and shares her business experience, wisdom, and insight on what APRNs need to know and do before opening their own practice. Some questions to think about: 1. What’s your “brand”? 2. How will you choose your practice name? 3. Which geographical location would you choose? 4. Will you go into business alone or take on partners? 5. Will you take health insurance or not? 6. What is your timeline? And many more! Recommended books: Nurse Practitioner's Business Practice and Legal Guide by Carolyn Buppert, JD, MS The Doctor of Nursing Practice: A Guidebook for Role Development and Professional Issues by Lisa Astalos Chism, DNP, APRN, NCMP, FAANP NP Notes: Nurse Practitioner's Clinical Pocket Guide by Ruth McCaffrey, DNP, ARNP, FNP-BC, GNP-BC, FAANP, and Humberto Reinoso, PhD, FNP-BC, ENP-BC

In this episode of The AJN Podcast, Kathleen Russell-Babin, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, ACNS-BC, vice president of professional practice at Inova Health System in Falls Church, VA, discusses implementation science (IS). Russell-Babin is the lead author of the first article in a new series for AJN, Applying Implementation Science. The article describes how a multisite health care organization developed a systemwide nurse-led IS Specialist program within a shared governance model. Russell-Babin shared, “The series will take each of our first five projects across our health care system and show concretely how we used our 10-step process or toolkit. It will help readers to visualize the realities of the methods.” In a discussion after the episode was recorded, she added, “This process is not a quick fix. It is systematic and takes time. Depending on the topic, sometimes the barriers are more than you expect. But as Weiner and colleagues wrote, partial implementation gets partial results and so staying with the process and using mapped strategies is worth the effort.”The article is open access and can be found here: https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/fulltext/2023/12000/a_nurse_led_implementation_science_specialist.22.aspx. Follow us through the series and learn how your organization can use implementation science to promote evidence-based practice and improve patient care.

AJN In this episode of The AJN Podcast, Elizabeth A. Ayello, PhD, MS, RN, CWON, FAAN, co-editor of Advances in Skin and Wound Care, discusses the role of the direct care nurse in wound and ostomy care. Listen as she shares valuable information and resources on the topic. Links to resources mentioned in the podcast are available below. Nursing 2023 article: https://journals.lww.com/nursing/fulltext/2023/08000/skin_and_wound_care_survey__2019_results.8.aspx Guidelines: EPUAP: https://www.epuap.org    NPIAP: https://npiap.com PPIAP: https://pppia.org   International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP): https://www.skintears.org AJN article: Skin Assessment in Patients with Dark Skin Tone: https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/fulltext/2023/03000/skin_assessment_in_patients_with_dark_skin_tone.20.aspx Wound care skin tone article: https://journals.lww.com/aswcjournal/fulltext/2023/10000/using_technology_to_detect_erythema_across_skin.4.aspx A stakeholder is anyone who has interest in pressure ulcers/injuries who wishes to provide input into the International PI Guideline. Check out this link: https://internationalguideline.com/stakeholders

Brigitte Sager, MSN, ARNP, FNP-C joins AJN senior clinical editor Christine Moffa to discuss the nurse’s role in functional medicine.

AJN senior clinical editor, Christine Moffa, speaks with AACN president Amanda Bettencourt and AACN president -elect Terry Davis, about challenges in nursing and AACN’s efforts to address these issues.

AJN senior clinical editor Christine Moffa speaks with Bernadette ‘Candy’ Capili about her articles, “Improving the Validity of Causal Inferences in Observational Studies” and “Efficacy Randomized Controlled Trials”. These articles are the 13th and 14th installments in a series on clinical research by nurses, “Nursing Research, Step by Step.”

AJN senior clinical editor Christine Moffa speaks with Renee Thompson DNP, RN, FAAN, CSP about workplace bullying and incivility. Dr. Thompson shares practical advice on what to do when this happens to you. Released on April 26, 2023

AJN senior clinical editor Christine Moffa speaks with ANA President Jennifer Mensik Kennedy about her journey to becoming president of the ANA, issues nurses are facing, and how the ANA plans to address these issues. Released on April 5, 2023

AJN senior clinical editor Christine Moffa speaks with Heather M. Young and Rita B. Choula about their guest editorial, which discusses nurses’ key role in supporting family caregivers.

A reading of AJN’s September 2022 Reflections column.

Interim editor-in-chief/senior clinical editor Christine Moffa and managing editor Amy M. Collins present the highlights of AJN’s August 2022 issue, including articles such as “Original Research: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Symptom Management in Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia,” “A Tai Chi for Arthritis and Fall Prevention Program for Older Adults During COVID-19,” “The Role of RNs in Transforming Primary Care,” “An Introduction to Qualitative Methods for the Nurse Researcher,” and more!

AJN interim editor-in-chief/senior clinical editor Christine Moffa speaks with Alexa Colgrove Curtis about her article, which uses real study examples to illustrate the basic principles of qualitative research. This article is the 11th in a series on clinical research by nurses, “Nursing Research, Step by Step.”

A reading of AJN’s August 2022 Reflections column.

Interim editor-in-chief/senior clinical editor Christine Moffa and managing editor Amy M. Collins present the highlights of AJN’s July 2022 issue, including articles such as “An Evidence-Based Yoga Practice for Hospitalized Adults on Medical–Psychiatric Units,” “Modifying Outdated Blood Donation Restrictions on Men Who Have Sex with Men,” “Long COVID: What We Know Now,” “Evaluating the Impact of Smartphones on Nursing Workflow: Lessons Learned,” and more!

A reading of AJN’s July 2022 Reflections column.

AJN interim editor-in-chief/senior clinical editor Christine Moffa speaks with Kathlyn Baharaeen and Sarah Fouquet about their article, which compares nursing perceptions, satisfaction, task efficiency, and interruptions before and after introducing the use of hospital-issued smartphones in a pediatric ICU and a satellite ED.

AJN editor-in-chief emerita Shawn Kennedy interviews American Association of Critical-Care Nurses president Beth Wathen and president-elect Amanda Bettencourt.