Increasing Nursing Advocacy and Empowerment at the State Policy Level Meeting Agenda January 8, 2014 3:30- 4:30 PM CST Project Goal: Inform and empower the nursing community to influence health care policy. Group Chairs: Roberta Young and Amber Kracht 1. Introductions: Wanda Rose, Jeanna Kujava, Jan Kamphuis, Kristin Roehr, Amber Kracht, Kyle Martin, Patricia Moulton 2. Review November 20, 2013 meeting notes. (on group website) Amber reviewed the notes from the November meeting. The group had talked about the legislative update process, the public forum site, the survey results and the setting up of the collaborative email groups. 3. Review status of legislative updates, collaborative email groups and administrative rules conference calls. Feedback?- Patricia Patricia indicated that we have held two legislative update calls in which our legislative monitor, Bruce Murry has provided a legislative update table and discussed the status of each of the legislative studies. Leadership Team legislative update calls Oct- 12 participants- see link to notes from update on website Nov- 19 participants- see link to notes from update on website Next Legislative update calls have been scheduled for January 10, March 28, May 9 Group members discussed the lag in minutes from legislative hearings. Often times they don’t get posted until months after the meeting and it makes it difficult to plan for testimony at the next meeting. The group indicated that we don’t have much control over that. One could contact legislative council for a particular set of minutes and see if they can be obtained sooner. Patricia indicated that when we send our monitor or Kyle into a meeting that we try and grab the printed materials if they are available from those that are testifying and then scan them and distribute them. They aren’t the same as the final official minutes- but they do provide something to work off of. Patricia indicated the ND Center for Nursing had sent out an email flash to all nurses in the state that are on our email list to encourage participation in open calls regarding the new Nurse Practices Act Administrative Rules changes. The calls included an item by item review of the changes and an opportunity for nurses to ask questions. For those that suggested changes, they were encouraged to submit those changes in writing. The NDBON has indicated that they have had a marked increase in the number of comments this round and believe that the calls were helpful. The NDBON has also started live web-streaming their meetings and the January 16th meeting will be streamed including the public comment period. Administrative Rules Calls- open to all nurses Dec 6- 30 participants Dec 13- 22 participants Group members wondered if the NDBON has an FAQ or something with the questions and answers about the Administrative Rules changes. Patricia indicated that she was unaware of a document, but suspected that Connie is probably producing something like that for the NDBON to use during their upcoming meeting. Patricia indicated she would ask Connie to see if there is a document. Patricia indicated that in the survey that we sent to leadership team members, that we asked which collaborative email group they would like to join. The list of email groups is based on interim legislative studies. Patricia set these up in December and sent each group an introductory email with links to the studies and agendas. Patricia will continue to send out updates as new legislative meetings are set up. Collaborative Email Groups- based on interim legislative studies Behavioral Health Needs- 7 members Children’s Health Insurance- 3 members Community Paramedic- 6 members Diabetes Prevention- 3 members Health Care Reform- 14 members Higher Education Funding- 7 members Home and Community Based Services- 8 members Open Textbooks- 6 members Tobacco Prevention- 5 members 4. Pilot Test of Public Forum website- Test email sent out Monday, 1/6/2014 regarding the impact of the ACA- How do we need to position resources in the state to meet the demand of ACA implementation? Also attached California report. Patricia indicated that she delayed the testing of the public forum website until after the Christmas season. Patricia sent out an email on Monday to both the ND Action Coalition and the ND Center for Nursing Leadership team that includes about 130 individuals. Unfortunately, when the email went out the ACA discussion point had accidentally been erased and was resurrected a couple of hours later. Also, many individuals had a tough time with the captcha code at the bottom of the email which is pretty much an industry standard feature to prevent spam. We removed this two days after launch. As of this meeting 5 people had registered for the forum and one individual had added a second discussion item on community paramedics. Public Forum email link: http://forums.ndcenterfornursing.org/ The group discussed that the forum is pretty easy to use and that we should put an announcement on our facebook with a link to encourage additional people to join the discussion forum. Patricia indicated that a comment she received was that we will need to make sure we have someone lined up to post and respond to postings, otherwise it probably won’t get used. Also, the group asked that Kyle make the global default that when items are posted or commented on the discussion forum that registered individuals receive an email. Without this group members indicated that they probably wouldn’t check the site. The group thought that we could rotate members who would post questions to the forum and Amber volunteered to post a comment in a month. Patricia indicated that we could also post questions based on the interim studies and what is going on in the collaborative email groups. 5. Examine reorganized survey results (attached and on group website). Next Steps? Patricia indicated that she spent quite a bit of town putting the survey results into a spreadsheet that she has named the nursing sphere of influence list with coding for topical areas, types of organizations and role. The spreadsheet represents a small number of nurses, but it was impressive to see the number and type committees that nurses are on. Patricia indicated that she thinks the next step is to send out the spreadsheet to the leadership team and ask them to email her with their group connections if they are not on the spreadsheet. She also indicated that she will do some web searching to try and fill it in- by looking at the state boards and commissions and hospital boards. The group discussed the goal of developing this list. Patricia indicated that the goal was to determine which groups we currently have nursing representation in order to increase communication and to also determine where the gaps are so that we can work to have a nurse appointed. The group discussed that the list might be a great resource to nurses that might want to know who else is interested in their topic or who have joined similar sorts of groups. Would need to be in some other more user friendly format. The group discussed that this more public list should not have email addresses on it in order to protect nurses from spam email. 6. Other topics The group discussed the need to get involved and get nursing at the table for the Community Paramedic Study. Patricia indicated that we have attempted to get connected with the stakeholder meetings that are slated for February by emailing Tom Neuring but have not had any response. Group members discussed that we could write letters to the editor, and push their legislators in order to stop from falling between the cracks. The group also discussed that there may be another way to meet the need short of starting a new health provider group. The group discussed that the organized nursing groups (NDNA, NDNPA and public health) should send a letter indicating that we want to be invited to the stakeholder meeting and to become active participants. Patricia indicated that she could call Dr. Terri Dwelle at the Health Department to see if she could get us into the stakeholder meetings and that she will communicate with the Community Paramedic Collaborative email group. Jeanna Kujava, Kristin Roers and Amber Kracht requested to be added to the Community Paramedic collaborative email group. The next meeting for this group has not been scheduled. Patricia will send out a meeting doodle- with some options for meeting days in March for this group. Activity Plan Year/Annual Goal 2013-2014 Provide interim legislative monitoring and communicatio n within leadership team. Activities Negotiate contract with legislative monitor and provide initial orientation. Draft initial interim study tracking table, obtain feedback from group and revise. Provide monthly updates including notes on tracked committees/studies. Schedule legislative update leadership team calls- every other month starting in September? Email leadership team to set up new collaborative email groups for specific studiesinclude with survey for second goal Also ask during November Legislative update call for email group selections Revise online advocacy center and develop Develop blog/facebook public forum site. Pilot public forum site by adding all group page and mechanism for members to it and then use it as a communicatio communication tool for this group and for the practice/policy home group. n with all nurses. Month/Responsible Activity Completion Status Person(s) July 25% 50% 75% 100% Patricia August Bruce Monthly Bruce/Patricia September, November, January, March, May Patricia SeptemberNovember 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100% Patricia August Kyle August-December Kyle Workgroup Pilot forum with leadership team and action coalition with a question about the ACA. Revised site as needed. Develop guidelines for monitoring site. 25% 50% January Kyle Launch public forum site. Develop list and start crosscommunicatio n mechanisms. Examine nurse participation list and survey leadership team about which organizations our leadership team members are active in and/or members of (professional and personal), coalitions, advocacy groups. Perhaps we can list some examples. Patricia sent out draft to group and then sent out survey. Results available for November meeting Examine list from survey and determine how to link individuals and develop crosscommunication mechanisms. August-October 25% 50% 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100% Patricia Workgroup November-March Patricia, Kyle, Bruce Workgroup Also analyze gaps where there is a potential need. Create a list or database for leadership members to effectively track what’s happening or has the potential to affect nursing. Each organization could monitor/track nursing testimony and communicate it back to the ND Center for Nursing. Nurses testifying could work with Bruce and Patricia to review and prepare/revise testimony. 2014-2015 Develop legislative platform, hold weekly legislative update calls, continue communication across leadership team and nurses on statewide committees 2015-2016 Evaluate effectiveness of legislative platform and communication strategies, continue interim monitoring and communication