ANNA meeting will cover health equity, discuss future of nursing
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Editor’s Note: Healio/Nephrology News & Issues interviewed Michele Heigle Kimball, the new executive director of the American Nephrology Nurses Association, and Cindi Calabrese, MSN, RN, NPD-BC, RN-BC, the director of education services for ANNA, about the organization’s upcoming national symposium, taking place May 7-10 in Palm Springs, California. For more information and to register, visit https://www.annanurse.org/events/2023-national-symposium.
Healio/Nephrology News & Issues: Why should nurses attend this conference?
Michele Heigle Kimball: The contact hours are important for their professional development, recertification and relicensure, but they also come for networking and connecting with their colleagues. It is a key part of the program – nurses coming together to support each other. Right now, we have more than 400 registrants for the meeting.
Our keynote speaker is Donna Cardillo, MA, RN, CSP, FAAN, who will outline opportunities for nurses to create a new paradigm that will empower, enlighten and elevate our profession.
Cindi Calabrese, MSN, RN, MPD-BC, RN-BC: Health equity is an important topic in health care today and will be part of our program. The ANNA has named this issue one of its state health priorities for 2023, stating we want to ‘actively seek opportunities to promote inclusion of all people in the provision of quality health care while eradicating disparities.’
Educating our membership on the problem and how to address it in their practice setting is one example of how ANNA supports its members in identifying problems and implementing solutions.
Healio/Nephrology News & Issues: Who is addressing this topic at the symposium?
Calabrese: Monique Bethell, PhD, MPH, a published author who has more than 20 years of experience working in public health and education, has focused on health equity and advocacy for marginalized populations. Dr. Bethell was a presenter at our fall conference in 2021, and we are delighted to have her return, this time to conduct a full-day pre-conference workshop.
This will provide the opportunity to dive deeper into the issues and root causes, and Dr. Bethell will then discuss strategies and tools to assist the nephrology nurse to develop a practice-based equity plan for their patient population.
Healio/Nephrology News & Issues: Share some details about the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) Round Table.
Kimball: This is an important meeting where we ask CNOs to help us develop a roadmap for the future of nephrology nursing. We want to look at developing some action steps that will lead to solid outcomes, and that will include looking at public policy.
It is part of our focus on what we see as the top two issues in nursing: breaking down some of the barriers to help increase our nephrology workforce and secondly, to address payment policy for dialysis services, which has not kept up with inflation.
We have a shortage of nurses now, and this is only going to be exacerbated as more individuals are diagnosed with kidney disease and need treatment. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reports that 91,000 students were turned away by nursing schools last year because of lack of faculty.
We have 37 million people with kidney disease. Even the federal government believes that number could increase to 60 million by 2030.
Healio/Nephrology News & Issues: Is there a nursing role to screen patients at risk for chronic kidney disease?
Kimball: Patients with kidney disease are ill; they have comorbidities, and their treatments are expensive for the Medicare program. But Medicare does not offer regular screening for CKD. How many lives could be saved along with costs if they provided a benefit for kidney disease screening? If we can catch this early, we can address lifestyle changes and even introduce medications that can slow the progression of kidney disease.
ANNA has supported legislation that would provide funding for primary care physicians and nurses to educate patients on kidney disease.
There is a lot of great work than can be done to improve the state of nursing. The focus needs to be on the workforce – making the environment for nursing better, not only for those in practice now, but for those who will enter the profession. We want to build a well-supported nephrology network of nurses that are delivering the quality of care for our patients.
Nurses rely on each other – and we need more of them.