As I write this final president's message I feel the energy level rising by the minute. Your NAON Executive Board and leaders are preparing to take part in the organization's Strategic Planning meeting. At the conclusion of this meeting, NAON leaders will emerge with the blueprint that will guide NAON into the future. My friends, NAON continues to be strong and grow-thanks to you and to the hard work of our leaders.
When I first described my vision for the year, I talked about membership growth, about welcoming more ONCs into NAON's membership, and about attaining support for the NAON Foundation. I am excited to say we are well on our way to seeing these come to fruition.
I am pleased to report that in January 2007, the first official month of the new membership year, NAON had 400 more members who renewed than at the same time in 2006. This speaks to the fact that members are recognizing and taking advantage of their NAON benefits by ensuring their membership status remains active.
Also contributing to NAON's membership growth is the success we are enjoying with our new membership challenge. In 2006, NAON kicked off our "Each One, Reach One" recruitment campaign. Through this campaign, active members earn rewards by recruiting new NAON members. My hope is that every member of NAON reaches out to at least one other person and encourages that person to join NAON.
ONCB also has seen a great increase in certificants and has now launched the Advance Practice ONP and OCNS exams. The NAON Foundation has grown too, thanks to generous support of individuals, industry sponsors, and NAON chapters. This generosity enables the Foundation to offer Congress scholarships to NAON members.
It also has been a successful year for NAON in fulfilling our mission of Excellence in Education, Research and Practice. Our members and leaders have been busy researching and developing new programs, as well as new methods for delivering learning opportunities to members.
Education
Our education division is evolving and has successfully developed many online courses with instant CEUs, including a Hip seminar and a review course for the new exam. Our productions area is developing the first of NAON's new Smartcard series. NAON's Smartcards are quick reference cards on important topics facing the orthopaedic nurse specialty. The first two of these cards will focus on DVT and Compartment Syndrome. Watch for these Smartcards this year.
NAON currently is completing the revision of the 5th Edition Core Curriculum and has completed the 2nd Edition of Orthopaedic Nursing Core Competencies: Across the Life Span. The Congress education committee has brought together the best topics and speakers for the 27th Annual Congress, which will take place May 19-23, 2007 in St. Louis, MO. Visit http://www.orthonurse.org to read the details on this year's Congress-and while you're visiting NAON online, be sure to register for the event!!
Our very own Orthopaedic Nursing Journal (ONJ) has been accepted into the highly exclusive ISI registry. We congratulate Mary Rodts, the editorial board and all of the contributing authors as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of ONJ.
Research
Understanding research is the key to advancing our mission. The research division is working toward helping nurses utilize research to help their practice, and to question why they do what they do. As NAON's Research Director Dr. Mary Nelson says "Without evidence based practice we don't have a leg to stand on." I could not agree more. Under Mary's guidance, the research committee has plans to educate our members about the scientific process, and understand the value and importance of research-based theory and practice. Among the research committee's initiatives include revitalizing the Congress poster session and evaluating Congress research studies.
Governance
As mentioned, the NAON Executive Board currently is developing the strategic plan, which will be unveiled at the Leadership Conference at Congress.
Under the guidance of NAON Executive Board Director Jan Foecke, the Chapter Restructuring Task Force (CRTF) and Chapter Advisory Team (CAT) Committee have delineated the standards for chapters, retired inactive ones and strengthened current ones. NAON also has welcomed two new chapters since May 2006-Chapter 211, St. Augustine, FL and Chapter 213, Southeastern Michigan. To provide some additional assistance to chapters, NAON is preparing an exciting chapter president education session-watch for more information on this soon.
Jan and her task force and committee members were asked to take on the challenging assignment of ensuring that NAON and its chapters were in compliance with legal standards regarding chapter structure, management and oversight. This is a large task which is still in progress-Jan and her groups are to be applauded for their hard work.
The Bylaws and Policy committee, led by Executive Board Secretary Toni Cawley, has been busy working on language for two bylaws changes-one involving a revised definition for the Associate Member category, and the second recognizing the Immediate Past President as a voting member of the Executive Board (rather than serving as an ex officio member). In addition, Toni and her committee recently completed a comprehensive policy review and audit.
Financial
NAON continues to operate on a sound financial plan. In 2006, the Finance Council, led by Treasurer Mary Betty Masters, oversaw measures that led to a reduction in operating costs and developed sound revenue building opportunities. Mary Betty initiated and oversaw the process that led to moving NAON's reserve funds into a managed account. Our industry sponsorship support continues to show positive gains, with corporate support coming from traditional NAON partners such as sanofi-aventis, Stryker and Zimmer-and new partners such as Tyco Kendall. We thank all of our corporate sponsors for their tremendous support.
Alliances and Special Projects: NAON once again partnered with our friends at AAOS to provide the Nursing and Allied Health Courses. We continue to work with our ICON friends to make the future better for all orthopaedic patients.
NAON is participating in the safe patient handling initiative for orthopedic nurses-this is part of a national campaign to alleviate injuries to nurses and patients. The diligent work of the task force will be unveiled at Congress by renowned safe patient handling expert Dr. Audrey Nelson. NAON also has been on the forefront of ATV safety campaigning and the Female Athlete Triad. We continue to encourage collaboration and networking of NAON members through our Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
As you can tell, it's been a busy-yet energized year!! In addition to thanking all of our volunteer leaders, I wanted to extend an enormous thanks to our Headquarters Staff and Management Team at Smith Bucklin for an excellent job. Together we are poised for a successful NAON future.