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Nursing students pack the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville for the annual Tennessee Nurses Association Legislative Summit in April.

“Tennessee’s nurses have always had a strong voice — not only for your profession, but for your patients as well. As caregivers and advocates, you are influential forces in the healthcare landscape in Tennessee. You are all here to make those voices heard on issues that affect the nursing profession … today is the day to make your priorities known.”

Those were the words of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen when, for the first time ever, a governor addressed the Tennessee Nurses Association (TNA) Legislative Summit. Several state lawmakers attended as well. The 20th annual event on April 2 attracted 1,200 participants, mostly nursing students from colleges and universities statewide. For many, it was their first trip to Capitol Hill.
Sessions on state and national issues, as well as “Legislation 101,” were held in the War Memorial Auditorium, and two hours were set aside for visits with legislators to stress policy initiatives important to nursing.

“A lot of nursing school is really focused on clinical and care issues, and it’s obvious why that is. But there is also a significant influence that the legislative process plays in our profession,” said Laura Beth Brown, TNA president and president of Vanderbilt Home Care Services. “We hope exposing the students, at this age while they’re in school and while they’re learning, at least gives them some basis for understanding the legislative process. It could potentially make or break the practice, so this is to make them aware of what is involved and how they can play a role in it.”

Brown said a favorite feature of the summit was when a spokesperson from each nursing school took the microphone, told how many students and faculty from the school were present and then presented what that school believes is the top legislative issue facing the profession. “That was really neat, because they had to get engaged in some fashion to come to an agreement about what they were going to do — and it forced them to think about what the issues are. I wish I had had that exposure at a young age,” she said.

The students’ issues mirrored many of those identified by TNA and even by Bredesen in his address, which called for nurses to back his initiative to revamp long-term care (see related story on page 12). Brown said TNA is “supportive of the administration’s bill to create an opportunity to give long-term-care recipients more choices. One in particular would be to have these services in their homes.”

Other action at the summit included a decision to request a legislative study committee this summer to examine the shortage of nursing faculty and low faculty salaries. “The only issue in nursing is not just the shortage of nurses, but the shortage of faculty to teach the students,” Brown said. “We’ve had significant improvement in the funnel of students coming into nursing programs, but there is a kink in the hose, if you will, because we don’t have the depth in faculty to teach everybody.” She added that “people with that kind of education can work in service settings and make a lot more money” than faculty members do. More than 2,500 eligible students were turned away from Tennessee nursing programs last year because there weren’t enough faculty members to teach courses.

Other issues on TNA’s radar screen include:

• Using surplus lottery dollars to increase the number of associate-degree nurses earning a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• Increasing the number of public school nurses from one for every 3,000 students to one for every 750 students, which is the recommendation of the American Nurses Association.
• Opposing a bill to allow volunteers in public schools to administer medications for major health issues.
• Working with a coalition that includes the Tennessee Medical Association to reach agreement on how advanced practice nurses should be supervised, particularly in the pharmacy retail-clinic setting.

TNA was successful in its push to allow advanced practice nurses to co-own professional limited liability corporations with physicians. The bill has passed both houses and, at press time, was awaiting the governor’s signature.

“We’ve made a concerted effort this year as an association to be really proactive,” Brown said. “So often over the years, we find ourselves in a situation of constantly having to protect ourselves and our profession. We tried to get outside of the box this year and say, ‘Hey, this is not just about being on the defensive. We’re on the offensive on a lot of things.’ ”



May 2008

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