By: Mary Jo Satusky, BSN, RN, ONC, CCRC
NAON President 2011-2012

In November 2011, I, along with your other NAON leaders, Christy Oakes, President-Elect, and Brigitte Failner, Immediate Past President, and NAON Executive Director, Kaye Englebrecht, attended the 2011 Fall Summit of the Nursing Organizations Alliance in Miami, FL.

The purpose of the Alliance is to provide a forum for identification, education, and collaboration building on issues of common interest so Alliance member organizations can advance the nursing profession in a cohesive way. Other Alliance educational programs include the Nursing Alliance Leadership Academy (NALA) and the Nurse in Washington Internship (NIWI). Brigitte Failner and I attended the NIWI program earlier last year.

Michael Bleich, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, Dean and Dr. Carol A. Lindeman Distinguished Professor, from the Oregon Health and Science University, School of Nursing presented a one-year follow up to the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing report. Dr. Bleich discussed the phases of change that organizations go through, and implementing the recommendations from the Future of Nursing report require dramatic changes in organizations.  Phases of these changes include: organizational awareness, organizational acceptance, organizational re-interpretation, organizational deepening, and, finally, organizational action.  Topics of ongoing discussion include examining scope of practice issues, development of residency programs, advancing education and competency, and leadership engagement and giving a voice to nursing. In addition, other topics include engaging with other disciplines at an organizational decision making level, gathering workforce data, working with regulators, and getting to the table with stakeholders outside of nursing. Not yet having a good way to share information and initiatives between organizations continues to be a challenge to moving forward with the recommendations. Action coalitions at the state levels are useful to some extent, but not having the ability to work from a common model is still missing and will slow forward progress. Nursing, he said, is still “command-and-control oriented.”

Another speaker was Mary Byers, CAE, a co-author of the book, The Race to Relevance—Five Radical Changes for Associations. Ms. Byers discussed radical challenges facing associations such as ours today. One challenge is the “time phantom,” noting that associations, such as NAON, compete with our volunteers’ leisure time. What are we asking our volunteers to do after a long day or week at their paying jobs? Another challenge to associations involves understanding what different generations value, and the specialization and consolidation in today’s healthcare industry. The speaker encouraged nursing associations to recruit the best and brightest to fill volunteer positions. NAON has a system in place to do this: the Willingness to Serve form, which can be found on the NAON website in the drop-down box under the Membership Center tab. I encourage you to complete a Willingness to Serve form, being specific as to what skills you possess and what interests you.

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