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The Encarta Dictionary defines CONNECTED as “joined together; with beneficial social connections.” Staying Connected is all about communication! Communication between our national organizations’ Board of Directors, committees, chapters, and individual members is as important as the connection to our Past, Present and our Future. We will celebrate these combined events on September 22-25, 2010, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with our 20th National Conference, “Expanding the Boundaries of Pain Management: The Next Twenty Years.”
I have had “a peek” and “a peak” at the 11 pre-conference workshops, more than 30 concurrent sessions, seven general sessions and many poster presentations planned by our Program Committee. I am awed by the scope of topics from pediatric pain to geriatric pain, from acute pain to persistent pain and to pain with addictive disease. All topics are widely covered. REMS, a topic I’ll mention later, is a vitally important topic that will be presented. Our past will be honored by having our past presidents present and/or share a memory of each presidential year. We would not have our present without their expertise and dedication to our organization.
During our 20th year celebration, our Treasurer and ad hoc historian, Ellyn Schreiner, will display a loving tribute to each year of ASPMN, each president and each accomplishment in a year-by-year set of scrapbooks that will be donated to our archives at the University of Virginia in April 2011. We will announce the details of this event in a future Pathways article. Ellyn’s talent as an artist and her professional dedication will be archived in perpetuity! As you plan to request time to join us in September, please visit www.aspmn.org and click on our National Conference event. You will find several years worth of conference presentations with electronic handouts and materials on how to get employer support to attend ASPMN’s 20th National Conference. These educational and historical events are key to your sharing expertise back home, and your networking will be enduring for your ability to develop your role and philosophy within your workplace. Early planning with airlines and hotel is always another cost-containing idea!
In the present, your ASPMN Board is working on sustaining plans and fostering creativity in growth with our new Strategic Planning Advisory Committee. This committee, comprised of three past presidents, Linda Dunajcik, Donna Sipos Cox and Nancy Eksterowicz, myself, “new” Board member Regina Styles and new organization member, Michele Yurgil, will review our past and current Strategic Plans and business minutes to be certain that we have captured past ideas and initiatives and to recommend prioritized objectives for future growth and development.
We are presently at yet another juncture in pain management nursing to provide leadership to promote best practice in timely assessment, reassessment and education to patients/people in pain and to health care professionals regarding a multidisciplinary, multimodal balanced approach to the management of pain.
The FDA continues to require a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) to manage “a known or potential serious risk associated with a drug or biological product.” A REMS will be required if the FDA finds that a strategy is necessary to ensure that the benefits of the drug or biological product outweigh the risks of the product. This directive includes all opiates and other substances such as chemotherapeutics.
Some of you may have attended the APS Conference where you heard Bob Rappaport, MD, Lynn Webster, MD, and David Haddox, MD, discuss the educational and safety measures that will be required. An FDA advisory committee is scheduled to meet in July. In the meantime, the agency is accepting public input online at http://www.regulations.gov. To submit comments, enter the code FDA-2009-N-0143-1061.
ASPMN requested and was recently awarded an unrestricted educational grant from King Pharmaceuticals to bring together a task force of our leaders to investigate and evaluate the impact of REMS for both healthcare providers and patients in persistent pain, to identify key educational messages to ensure that a class-wide REMS protects people, and to address future research needs and policy monitoring to assure optimal safe and effective pain treatments. The task force will ultimately develop a White Paper to provide a guideline for our ASPMN members and others. Kathleen Broglio will be chairing this task force.
Our future will continue to address and support our members’ local, state and national mission to advance and promote optimal nursing care for people affected by pain by promoting best nursing practice. Yet, we need to be mindful of our international colleagues who struggle with efforts to fulfill the same mission with little support. Our first International Affiliate, of many I hope, was highlighted in our last Pathways. As of this writing I am thrilled to say that the American Nurses’ Association has asked ASPMN to share our co-published Pain Management Nursing: Scope and Standards for Practice with Internationally renowned healthcare publisher Wolters Kluwer for inclusion in its international e-library Ovid. Our standards will be an additional international resource for pain management. This is a tribute for our organization and to those who participated in the publication.
Please join me in congratulating our future (next) President-Elect Jo Eland, PhD, RN, FAAN, who has continued to be an active member of our Board since 2005, our Treasurer Todd Berger MSN, ACNP-BC, ACNS-BC, our returning Board Members Pat Bruckenthal, PhD, APRN-BC, and Melanie Simpson, PhD, RN-BC, OCN, CHPN, and our new Board Member but seasoned Program Co-Chair, Holly Swenson, MSN, RN-BC, APRN, NP-C who will join incoming President Ann Schreier, PhD, RN, and continuing 2009 Board members.
The future is embroidered from the past and in the present. We may struggle with the day-to-day issues of pain management nursing in our workplace, however, remember to look forward to addressing these issues in “the bigger picture” through participating on our listserve, at chapter meetings and at our national conferences.
Two decades ago, Chris Pasero and our founders had a dream to connect nurses across the country in an effort to provide pain management from an evidence base and best practice. I feel the need to continue to be part of that dream. I hope that you will too.
Theresa A. Grimes, RN-BC, MN, FNP, BC, CCRN
– ASPMN President
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