Good afternoon and welcome to Salt Lake City. On behalf of the INS Board of Directors and staff, I would like to thank you for taking your time to travel to this meeting, to further your education, to meet your colleagues, and to show support for the specialty of infusion nursing. INS has just completed another successful year, marking the 31st anniversary of the Society and the 21st anniversary of INCC. Such milestones provide an appropriate time for me, as INS President, to reflect upon my presidential term. Let me share with you some of INS' accomplishments, as well as my experiences, over the last year.
In October 2003, INS published the third edition of the Core Curriculum for Infusion Nursing. Since it was first published in 1984, this text has been an invaluable resource for nurses who aspire to CRNI status. INS will host a book signing this Monday that features the book's esteemed editors and contributors. Thank you to all who participated in the revision of the Core Curriculum; your hard work has yielded yet another wonderful addition to the INS bookshelf.
Making its debut at this meeting is a long-awaited education module that teaches basic infusion therapy skills in a convenient format. The Fundamentals of Infusion Therapy CD-ROM education module uses video, graphics, and animation to teach the basics of infection control, insertion skills, and care and maintenance procedures, all at the click of a mouse. The module can even be licensed to healthcare organizations for the purposes of staff education and is approved for 3 hours of continuing education credit. We are especially proud of this new product and hope that it will assist nurses everywhere in providing consistent quality infusion care.
Infusion care of the elderly population has long been an area of concern for INS. Now, through an affiliation with the John A. Hartford Foundation, INS is focusing on the elderly population both here at the Annual Meeting and through a special award for excellence in elder care. On Monday afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00, INS will present a special focus track on care of the elderly infusion patient. The three sessions, presented by experts in elder care, will offer unique perspectives on the needs of elderly patients. The Competence in Infusion Nursing for the Elderly Patient Award, which is supported by a grant from the Hartford Foundation, will be announced on Tuesday evening at the Celebration of Excellence. This award will recognize one outstanding nurse who has demonstrated superior care and improved outcomes for elderly patients.
INS also partnered with Synermed and Genentech, Inc last year to help produce a continuing education program on occluded catheters. The program, "Management of Thrombotic Occlusion in Central Venous Access Devices," was available through an audioconference component and offers 1.5 contact hours. The program has been very successful and will continue through May of 2005.
This year, an INS representative participated in the Nurse in Washington Internship (NIWI), which is sponsored by the Nursing Organizations Alliance. At NIWI, nurses learn about the public policy process and develop skills in health policy advocacy. Cathy Robinson, INS Director at Large, was the INS intern this year. Highlights of the 4-day program included learning how health policy is formed, attending an Executive Branch briefing, and visiting with members of Congress.
INS will support the spirit of the Nurse in Washington Internship by posting the INS Guide to Public Policy on its Web site this year. This free guide includes an overview of the policy process and the role that infusion nurses can play, and offers tips for contacting legislators and influencing policies that affect us and our patients. I encourage each of you to download this helpful guide and share it with your colleagues and local chapter members.
INS has continued to work with other nursing and healthcare organizations to promote the infusion specialty. For the last 2 years, INS Education Manager Deborah Benvenuto has served on the committee to revise the Practice Guidelines for Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT). Now that the revised guidelines have been published, INS will continue its relationship with OPAT by contributing a column on infusion therapy to its newsletter, which is set to begin publication this summer.
In other collaborative efforts, INS was asked to participate at the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition's (A.S.P.E.N.'s) Nutrition Week Conference in Las Vegas this February. While INS representatives had attended A.S.P.E.N. conferences in the past, this was the first time that INS had participated in an A.S.P.E.N. meeting as a specialty organization. INS CEO Mary Alexander, Deborah Benvenuto, and INS Public Member Charles Edmiston delivered a panel presentation that focused on the relevance of the 2002 CDC Guidelines for Prevention of Intravascular Catheter-Related Infections for patients who receive parenteral nutrition, vascular access device management for the parenteral nutrition patient, and physiology of biofilm and its relationship to catheter infections. The panel discussion was well received, as evidenced by an extensive question and answer period.
In early March 2004, INS was represented at the National Home Infusion Association's (NHIA's) 13th Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Deborah Benvenuto presented "Strategies for Effective Patient Education" to an audience of pharmacists and nurses involved in home infusion care.
In April of this year, Presidential Advisor Roxanne Perucca, Deborah Benvenuto, INS member Lynn Hadaway, and I attended the Nursing 2004 Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada, sponsored by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, publisher of the Journal of Infusion Nursing. There, Roxanne, Deborah, and Lynn presented a 1-day preconference workshop, "Advancing Your Knowledge and Skill in Infusion Therapy," which covered the essentials of infusion therapy, discussed the Infusion Nursing Standards of Practice, and the importance of infusion team validation. The workshop included a hands-on segment that demonstrated infusion techniques, and I was happy to assist with this part of the program. INS also attended the symposium as an exhibitor.
INS Past President Brenda Dugger completed her term on the Coordinating Team for the Alliance this year, while Roxanne Perucca was recently elected to serve as Secretary of the Coordinating Team. INS President-elect Mary Walsh will now serve as INS' official representative in the Alliance, and Mary Alexander will continue her work in the Alliance as Chair of the Brochure Project Work Team, which is charged with developing a generic brochure that highlights the benefits and value of belonging to a professional nursing organization.
In the past year, I have had the opportunity to speak to nurses from various specialties, imparting my knowledge about infusion therapy and absorbing all that I could from noninfusion nurses. At last year's INS Annual Meeting and Industrial Exhibition, I copresented with Roxanne Perucca at a special 2-hour professional development session entitled "A Call for Nursing Leadership." While Roxanne discussed the skills needed to serve as an elected official, I focused on the importance of volunteerism in professional associations. It was truly rewarding and heartening to see how many nurses attended this session and were interested in making a contribution to INS. Later at that meeting, I discussed difficult IV starts and the pros and cons of lidocaine use at the INS booth.
In May of 2003, I represented INS at the Oncology Nursing Society's (ONS) 28th Annual Congress in Denver, Colorado. INS has a long history of collaborating with this organization because the oncology and infusion specialties complement each other. At the ONS meeting, I copresented "Clinical Dilemmas and Controversies in Vesicant Administration" along with Lisa Schulmeister, MN, CS, OCN and Dawn Camp-Sorrrell, RN. My segment of this presentation discussed risk factors for extravasation.
This year, I had the honor of working on the INS Board of Directors with Public Member Charles Edmiston. Charles has resigned from the Board this year to pursue other professional endeavors, and I would like to express how much INS truly appreciates all of his contributions over the years.
As you can see, INS has worked hard over the past year to support infusion nurses and advance the specialty. I am proud to have been a part of these accomplishments, and to have worked with and met the infusion nurses whose passion has driven the success of INS. I complete my term at this meeting. It is with the knowledge that this good work will continue, and that infusion nurses will not just survive in today's healthcare system, we will thrive.
You shared the passion . . . you recommitted yourselves . . . and the rewards are yours. I am honored to have served as President of INS this year. I am grateful for the friendships that I have developed, for the opportunity to work with so many of you, and for the support of the Board of Directors. I look forward to supporting Mary Walsh during her term as President, and I will continue to promote the accomplishments of infusion nurses everywhere.