PANA PRESIDENT: Enhanced Leadership, Increased Engagement, Mentorship Key to Growing Profession

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE:

Laura Wiggins, DNP, CRNA

Lt. Col. (R), U.S. Air Force

It is a pleasure and honor to be assuming the role of President of the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists (PANA). I am looking forward to serving the membership in the upcoming year. There certainly is no shortage of work to do.

Our Government Relations Team and Government Relations Director, Jessica Poole, are confronting several issues in Harrisburg. I attended a meeting there Oct. 27 with the Department of State and the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs on behalf of PANA and our members. During this meeting, they discussed the antiquated PALS system and license renewals within the state of Pennsylvania. PANA is trying to determine how our new title designation will be processed through this system, or any other system the state develops. We learned several things at this meeting, but the most important thing is not to delay renewing any licenses. Get them done as soon as you receive notification because there will be obvious growing pains in activating a new system and removing the old PALS system.

As your new PANA President, I am setting the following goals for our association:

• Enhance the leadership of the board of directors;

• Increase member engagement; and

• Mentor our future leaders

I think as CRNAs we are experts at patient care and clinical competence. I feel that we are sometimes lacking in the leadership realm. I hope to improve on this within our board by encouraging participation in the AANA Leadership Summit and offering other leadership training throughout the year. Advocacy continues to be one of our main priorities, especially during an election year. We need to be out in front, meeting with our legislators and forming long-lasting relationships with legislative aides, legislators and lobbyists to solidify our position on various health-care issues that will present themselves within the coming year. Leadership in this area is a priority and necessity. We are fully expecting legislation to be re-introduced in the next session, which begins in January 2023, to license anesthesiologist assistants (AAs) for the first time in Pennsylvania. The connections and relationships we form now with lawmakers will be extremely important in helping us maintain our position and will help us with gains in propelling the profession forward.

I also hope to increase member engagement by communicating with members directly on issues that affect our profession. PANA’s Communications Director, Sarah Trau, will help facilitate this huge undertaking. She will be working with the team at Ceisler Media & Issue Advocacy to make sure our members are in the know and kept informed. My hope is that as we increase engagement, more members will participate in district events and other educational activities and political action committee (PAC) events.

Finally, mentoring our future leaders is extremely important in ensuring the ongoing success and trajectory of the profession. Please encourage student involvement at every level of participation! I am motivated and encouraged by the excitement and enthusiasm of the SRNAs we have on the PANA board. Hopefully, their enthusiasm is contagious and will be felt by all of the members in the coming months.

I remain committed to helping this profession succeed in this time of uncertainty. With change there is always room for opportunity. Advancing our profession is worth the fight. If you have any ideas or suggestions for upcoming PANA events or want to know how to contact your legislators, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am looking forward to working with all of you and serving this association.

End of session is just the beginning of AA legislative fight

Only a few session days remain—six in the Senate, three in the House of Representatives—before Pennsylvania’s 2021-22 legislative session ends.

Any bill that hasn’t made it entirely through both chambers of the state General Assembly to get to the governor’s desk for his signature and enactment must be reintroduced and work itself through the whole legislative process again when the new two-year session starts in January 2023.

The end of session is good news when it comes to bad policy like House Bill 1956 and Senate Bill 1258, two companion measures that would license anesthesiologist assistants (AAs) for the first time in Pennsylvania.

Neither bill received consideration and no votes are pending in these waning days of session. But that doesn’t mean the issue is finished—far from it.

The Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists (PANA) successfully pushed back against the legislation this year, but we fully expect the measures to be reintroduced in the 2023-24 session.

We’ll be ready, too. We have to be, because we’ve already seen some of tactics proponents will use to advance their bills. Consider the lengths they’ll go:

• Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) and SRNAs heard rumors that the legislation passed. Nope. Never happened. In fact, on April 25, PANA testified against the legislation during a House Professional Licensure Committee hearing. The measure never received a vote.

• In an unprecedented attempt to circumvent the legislative process, AAs began reaching out directly to both physician-owned and CRNA-owned anesthesia companies with notice that they are authorized to work in Pennsylvania under delegatory authority. The Pennsylvania Department of Health has made clear that anesthesiologist assistants are not recognized as an anesthesia provider in the state and therefore cannot operate as such in the commonwealth.

• Working with their state and national organizations, anesthesiology assistants also have been claiming publicly that AAs and CRNAs can be used interchangeably, alleging an anesthesia shortage, as part of an attempt to move AAs into facilities where CRNAs are already working. Nonsense. AAs are limited by their training to only provide support as a technical assistant to a physician anesthesiologist and cannot provide anesthesia care apart from their direct supervision. Any scenario that has an AA working apart from a physician anesthesiologist is in direct violation of federal law.

So, while this legislative session is ending, it’s really just the beginning of the fight against a misguided policy that will NOT improve patient safety or enhance care; will NOT reduce health-care costs, but instead contribute to costlier care models; and will NOT improve access to anesthesia services.

Learn more at www.PANAforQualityCare.com.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: Featuring Zulmarie Adorno-Maldonado, MSN, CRNA

Zulmarie Adorno-Maldonado, MSN, CRNA

Zulmarie Adorno-Maldonado, MSN, CRNA, is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico Nurse Anesthesia Program. Zulmarie is the clinical coordinator at UPMC York Memorial Hospital. She takes pride in her work, in her team, and in helping students make the most of their clinical rotation while at UMPC York Memorial Hospital. Her passion for providing safe anesthesia shows with every patient interaction, and she especially lights up when caring for Spanish-speaking patients. When asked what it means to be a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) of Hispanic heritage, Zulmarie responded:

“For me, being a CRNA is about serving the community and helping them to have a successful surgery and a quick recovery. I feel honored to be a Latinx CRNA, representing my culture through the care of my patients and being a familiar face for them and a communication tool in their preoperative journey. I'm committed to my profession and the safety my patients.”

🩺💙 For additional #HispanicCRNA stories in our #HispanicHeritageMonth blog series, click here.

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