I hope all of you who were able to attend AORN national congress in Anaheim had an enjoyable time last week.  Now is the time for those of us who attended national congress to bring back the new ideas that we heard and saw and share these new ideas with our coworkers, peers, staff and/or  managers, etc.

   It is important to bring back best practices to our clinical areas.  We can begin to implement best practices in our organizations by getting involved with your local AORN chapter and in your own hospitals’ performance improvement committees. Getting involved with AORN at the local level helps you learn how other organizations are practicing and utilizing best practices in our own community.  Then we can take these ideas back to our own clinical settings.   Getting involved in the performance improvement department committees or hospital committees helps begin to spread the ideas which might work in our own organizations.  Any improvement starts with one person.  If each of us just did one percent to improve our patient care, just imagine the effect the whole operating room could have on an organization’s patient care.

 On another note, we learned at congress that AORN and ANA, American Nurses Association, are beginning a joint venture starting this July 1, 2008.  As a member of AORN you will automatically also be an “affiliated” member of ANA.   This affiliation was brought about by the leadership of both AORN and ANA this year as the current ANA president is also an operating room RN and a member of AORN.  To learn more about this affiliation and what it means to each of us as an AORN member keep reading your AORN journal.  Nurses can be a powerful force when we work together!!   

We have some excellent educational sessions to be offered this month, in May and in June.  I hope you will attend the April and May meetings at AMN in Carmel Valley.  The June meeting will be a dinner meeting with the installation of next year’s officers.  The selection of the installation is decided by the President –elect.  The location is listed on the back of this newsletter.   I hope you all plan to attend the remaining meetings for the 2007-2008 year. 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Best regards, 

                                                                                                                     Marcia