On June 16, in conjunction with the ANA House of Delegates, approximately 300 nurses from across the country came to Capitol Hill to take part in the ANA 2010 Lobby Day.  This year we also added a virtual component, allowing 1200 nurses from all over to follow the action “virtually” on Facebook and Twitter.  On our “Virtual” Lobby Day homepage participants were able to research issues and write letters to their members of Congress leading to over 400 letters sent!

The day began with a breakfast briefing conducted by ANA staff.  Staff provided meeting logistics, a “how to” lobby keynote presentation conducted by a Congressional staffer, as well as an overview of the four issue areas the Lobby Day would focus on: Safe Patient Handling, Safe RN Staffing, Environmental Health/Safe Chemical Policy and APRN Ability to Certify Home Health Plans of Care.  Armed with full stomachs and their lobby day materials, the participants boarded buses and headed to Capitol Hill.

Over the next five hours our participants lobbied their Members of Congress on the issues important to nursing, while their virtual counterparts were doing the same from home.  The impact was felt immediately.  Since then we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of Congressional co-sponsors of the legislation our nurses advocated on!  Proof that when nurses share their voices on these important issues, Washington Listens!

We want to keep that momentum going into the summer and here is what you can do to help.

There are many ways for you to be active in our grassroots program. Visit our N-STAT Take Action page where you can find the latest updates on our key issues and things you can do to advocate!  This page will be your one-stop-shop for grassroots advocacy.  Be sure to join the team because as a member of N-STAT you will receive ANA grassroots action alerts notifying you when important issues to nursing are passing through Congress and providing you with an opportunity to take action.

You can also follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/nursingworld.

Thanks to everyone who took part for sharing your voice and making ANA’s 2010 Lobby Day on Capitol Hill such a success!

ANA Government Affairs Staff

Tags: Capitol Hill, June 2010, Lobby Day, Virtual Lobby Day

This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 9:35 AM and is filed under Archived. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.