ANA hosted the tenth annual lobbyist meeting Wednesday, September 16 through 18^th in Washington, DC in which 32 constituent member associations (CMAs) were represented: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CO, CT, DE, GA, IL, IA, KS, LA, MA, MD, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NM, NY, NJ, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, VT, WA, WI.  During the meeting, attendees engaged in rich conversations about the political environment within their respective states and legislative successes and challenges surrounding a number of nursing and health care issues.

Given the number of states with experience in passing legislation addressing safe staffing, safe patient handling, workplace violence, and mandatory overtime, sharing of strategies and lessons learned dominated the discussion. Other topics such as nursing education advancement, the nurse licensure compact, nursing graduates from non-traditional education programs, title “nurse” protection and the Christian Science community as well as the increasing presence of medication assistants/techs were also deliberated.  

Following a federal legislative briefing, time was allotted for visits to Congressional representatives to speak to recommended nursing provisions in health care reform as well as efforts to advance safe patient handling legislation:  the “Nurse and Healthcare Worker Protection Act” (HR 2381) – Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) and  House Resolution 510 – Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY).  To learn more about either of these ANA efforts or to take action, please visit here.

To identify progress with state initiatives associated with ANA’s Nationwide State Legislative Agenda, please click here.

Janet Haebler, MSN, RN

Tags: ANA’s Nationwide State Legislative Agenda, October 2009

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