Legislative News & Update #1

Legislative News & Update #1

The 2013 session of the General Assembly has begun. There a many new legislators starting their first terms. This presents a great opportunity to raise awareness and recognition of the APRN role and our contributions to high quality, cost effective health care.

In addition, as members of our Coalition have participated in the National Campaign for Action activities, we are learning from other states about successful strategies for advancing our objectives. One of the most powerful strategies has been to collect stories that shows examples of how patient care was negatively impacted (quality, time, delay in treatment, duplicate visits, additional cost to either patient, provider or the health care system etc.) by current barriers to access and care, as well as patient testimonies of satisfaction with care provided by APRNs'. These examples are far more effective with legislators far than just providing then with statistics and research findings. In line with these learnings, the following actions are requested. The first two are urgent and immediate and action is requested within the next week.

1. Please identify and call or write your personal state Senator and Representative. Introduce yourself, explain your education and role and offer your expertise in assisting them with health care issues. Please do this as soon as possible. You can find this information by entering the requested information:
   Click Here
    
2. If you have made contact and/ or have an existing relationship with a state level legislator, please e-mail Laura Searcy at LSearcy@caprn.org so that we can be aware of connections between members and constituent APRN's
    
3. Please document your stories as described above, (remove all specific identifying information except type of setting and general geographic location) and send to Laura Searcy at LSearcy@caprn.org

Two national publications have been released in the last few weeks that both come to the conclusion that inconsistent and often restrictive regulation of Aprn’s from state to state is a barrier to the delivery of high quality, cost effective health care.

Please see the attachment for the AHA White Paper: Click Here

Please Click Here for the National governor's Association publication titled "The Role of Nurse Practitioners in Meeting Increasing Demand for Primary Care"

Thanks for all you do every day to improve the health of your patients and communities. Let's all take action to remove barriers to access and care for our patients in Georgia.