As you can tell from the activities highlighted in ANI Connection, plenty is happening in NI nationally and around the world. Several actions have focused on ANI and its initiatives with wonderful opportunities for NI, through its unified voice in ANI, to have an impact on national policy in informatics.
Most recently, ANI sent a letter of response to the American Health Information Community (AHIC) Successor White Paper. The response strongly recommended that the AHIC successor and its related governance model require nursing input as an interoperable nationwide health information network be created. Further, the National Coordinator for Health IT was asked to consider financial support for voluntary travel to meetings, opportunities for remote participation in meetings, and ways to be certain the fees would not be a barrier to nurse membership in the AHIC successor. In July, ANI sent a letter to the Google Health Advisory Council requesting they amend their council representation to include one or more members from the nursing profession. Google was also asked to consider healthcare consumers and providers within the international community. ANI also wrote a letter supporting the successful multinational bid for North America to host NI 2012, an international NI meeting.
The TIGER Summit (Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform) was convened nearly a year ago. More than 100 nurse leaders gathered to create a collective vision for nursing practice and education that uses technology and informatics to improve the delivery of patient care. Since last October, the Summit report has been widely disseminated, articles have been published, and educational sessions have been presented. You may be wondering what else has happened since that event. Under the direction of Donna DuLong, ANI TIGER Program Director, TIGER has been extremely busy, implementing the second phase of the project aimed at enabling practicing nurses and nursing students to fully engage in the unfolding digital electronic era in healthcare. A detailed update of TIGER initiative will appear in the next ANI Connections. Stay tuned!