Newsletter Archives

Enjoy your first on-line Chapter Newsletter. All past newsletters will be archived.

Welcome Back to a new year with AORN SD! I am excited for the opportunity to serve you as your Chapter President. I hope you all experienced a wonderful summer and are ready to come to meetings and spend time with your perioperative peers within the community.

This year's Congress theme is Reaching the "Peak of Perioperative Practice" in the areas of safety, quality and collaboration. I urge each and every one of you to take the time to stress these areas in your daily practice. In addition, I would also like to encourage the membership to send in ideas of what you all would like to see for the monthly educational offering...or better yet come up and present. I promise we are an easy audience.

The board had its first meeting in August and we did a lot of brainstorming and came up with new plans for the membership...stay tuned.

Our biggest change is going completely electronic for our Newsletter. We have a new and improved website where you will find all our upcoming events and important information. This will continue to develop with your input. Please let me know what works and any areas of improvement. I do realize for some this can be an inconvenience. A vast majority of Chapters have had to do the same thing due to the cost of publishing and mailing newsletters. The website will be our primary means of communication. I encourage all of you to update your information with AORN headquarters, especially your email address since this will be our secondary means to send out any additional information.

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the September meeting at AMN Healthcare in Carmel Valley.

Your 2009-2010 President

Maureen Pennington, MSN, RN, CNOR

Welcome to AORN San Diego 2009-2010! I am Michelle Fennell and I am very happy to be serving as your President-Elect this year! I am looking forward to our exciting educational opportunities and networking. Please join us at our monthly meetings for our educational offerings (1.0 CEU each month and a fall and spring workshop), a chance to visit with colleagues from other hospitals and our wonderful hospitality table.

Please also let us know how the Chapter can help meet your perioperative needs, and of course, we welcome all volunteers for the Chapter.

Thank you!
Michelle R. Fennell, RN, CNOR

May Balance $ 28,265.37
Income-ORD $ 5,261.51
Income-INT $ 2.27 $ 5,263.78
Expenses $ 5,197.69

June Balance $ 28,331.46

The July Report is:

June Balance $ 28,311.46
Income-ORD $ 500.00
Income-INT $ 5.48 $ 505.48
Expenses $ 19.95 $ -

July Balance $ 28,816.94

Other items:

• Chase has changed our account fee structure. It will need to be managed to but for the most part we should not incur any fees.
• I have not found another accountant to do our taxes, so I recommend we send them to Don Rodgers again this year.
• Professional Liability has been paid this month and the second half of the website design will be due soon.
• Audit still in progress.

View the spreadsheet for more information.

Respectfully submitted

Candise Flippin, RN MS, CNOR

Date: September 24, 2009 Print Meeting Flyer and share with a friend!

Topic: "Team STEPPS: Creating a Culture of Patient Safety"

Presented by Commander Annie Case, NC
1.0 CEU

Time: 7-8:00 pm for Education Offering

6:15 General Meeting Starts

Location: AMN Headquarters

12400 High Bluff Drive
San Diego, CA 92130

Directions: www.mapquest.com or visit our Calendar Page

SEE YOU THERE! Print Meeting Flyer and share with colleagues.

September 24: Pot Luck. Bring a Yummy Dish

October 22: Palomar Pomerado/Escondido

Caution: A member is DEATHLY ALLERGIC to Blueberries. Please do not bring any hospitality products that contain blueberries

Add these dates to your calendar.

October 3, 2009 Fall Workshop. Print Flyer

April 24, 2010-Spring workshop. Details later.

June 4, 2010-Golf Tournament. Don't miss this fun event. Details later.

Call to order: Call to order by President Peka at 6:45 pm.

Approval of Minutes: MSC to approve minutes as printed in newsletter.

President’s Report: Congratulations to all the new Board members, all of you now appear on the AORN web site. We have an award recipient Mary Ann Shultz –Ramirez who will receive partial reimbursement of test fees. Palomar/ Pomerado is holding a CNOR Review course on January 17 & 17th 2010.Web site is being created. Please all of you update your phone numbers and email addresses.

President -Elect: Maureen is really sad that she doesn’t have any more newsletters to put together and she can truthfully say she put together the very last on. Anyone interested in working on a committee please contact Maureen.

Treasurer’s Report: Beginning Balance: May       $ 23,659.96
                                    Income:                                  $ 4,871.81
                                    Expenses:                               $   266.40
                                    Ending Balance:                    $ 28,265.37
Budget for next year was adopted.

Respectfully Submitted By:

Suzanne Higginbotham RN, CNOR

All meetings are held at the same location. Print Meeting Schedule

AMN Health Care
12400 High Bluff Drive
San Diego, CA 92130
Get Directions: www.mapquest.com

The meeting times are the same for the entire year unless otherwise posted.

Board Meeting 5:00 pm

Social Time 6:00 pm

General Meeting 6:15 pm

Educational Offering 7-8:00 pm

Meeting dates for the 2009-2010 year are:

September 24, 2009

October 22, 2009

December 3, 2009

January 28, 2010

February 25, 2010

March 25, 2010

April 22, 2010

May 27, 2010

June 2010 TBD

Print the Meeting Schedule

AORN Government Affairs recently sent e-mails to grassroots members asking them to contact their Congress members about the importance of creating a national surgical data depository to be used to measure quality outcomes and potentially be used for effectiveness studies that might decrease costs and improve quality. AORN has developed the Perioperative Nursing Data Set (PNDS) as well as the Syntegrity Standardized Perioperative Framework Syntegrity to support these public policy objectives. Government Affairs is urging all AORN Members to contact their Congressional person(s) to encourage their support of standardized healthcare data collection.

As for California, the ANA\C Director, the Honorable Tricia Hunter, RN, MN recently wrote on the ANA\C Government Affairs about the recent actions by the Governor in dismissing most of the California BRN Board and her disappointment with the LA Times for their inaccurate information, as well as allowing the BRN Board to assume the blame for the failure of a system that does not protect the public nor investigate in a timely manner the nursing complaints. Unfortunately the Board does not control the investigations or their budget. At this time the Department of Consumer Affairs controls the Boards budget and they cannot hire or create positions without the Department's approval. She also recommends asking for an independent BRN Board. If our profession has to take the hits, then give us the responsibility and accountability as well.

This report was done with information from two sources: AORN Advocacy News as well as the article written by Ms. Hunter in the ANA\C publication. It is very easy for our members to get the the ANA website by creating "a sign in and a password" because of the affiliation of AORN and the American Nurses Association (ANA) provide AORN members a connection with the resources and activities of the ANA and broader nursing communities. Also this combination will provide AORN with additional authority in federal legislation.

I will report more on these issues in subsequent reports.

Submitted by

Virginia L. Ogren, RN, BSN, CNOR

First Time CNORs and CRNFAs

Two (2) grants to be awarded in January 2010 for successfully passing the certification exam taken April 1, 2009 to September 30, 2009. The grant awarded will be for one half (1/2) of the exam fee. Deadline for application is no later than November 1, 2009. Download this application form.

Learn more about the Scholarships and Grants offer by the Chapter.

Vickie Pierce, Scholarship Chair

In 2013, a nurse will be the President of the Tournament of Roses. That nurse is Sally Bixby and along with being the first nurse she will be only the second woman in the 124th year history of the Parade. A grass roots effort is underway to raise money to have a Nurses Float during this parade year. To learn more about the Nurses Float, visit www.flowers4thefloat.org We need your financial donations so we can make this vision of honoring all nurses a reality. Please print the attached flyer and share this information at your workplace and at home. We appreciate your support.