Health Care Reform
April
2010
The recently passed
Health Care Reform bill contains a provision -- Section 5603 of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
-- reauthorizing the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program
for five (5) years. The final law authorizes funding for the program
as follows:
FY2010: $25,000,000
FY2011: $26,250,000
FY2012: $27,562,500
FY2013: $28,940,625
FY2014: $30,387,656
Please note that these
are only the "authorized" amounts. Each year we will have to fight for
an approppriation.
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE ADVOCATED FOR
THE REAUTHORIZATION WITH YOUR LEGISLATORS!
Kathleen A.
Ream
Director,
Government Affairs
Emergency
Nurses Association
E-mail:
enagov@aol.com
Recognizing the Emergency Nurses
Association- 40th Anniversary
April 14,
2010
HON. LOIS
CAPPS
OF
CALIFORNIAIN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mrs. CAPPS.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Emergency Nurses Association
and to congratulate them on their 40th anniversary. The Emergency Nurses
Association, or ENA, is the only professional nursing association dedicated
to defining the future of emergency nursing and emergency care through
advocacy, expertise, innovation and leadership. It boasts more than 37,000
members worldwide.
Founded in
1970 as the Emergency Department Nurses Association and led by Anita M.
Dorr, RN and
Judith C. Kelleher, RN, it was originally established to set standards for
best practices in emergency nursing care. It also provided continuing
education programs for emergency nurses and a united voice for nurses
involved in emergency care. In 1985,
the
Association name was changed to Emergency Nurses Association, ENA.
Among its
many accomplishments, ENA published its first Roadway Safety Scorecard
in 2006,
providing an overview of the kinds of roadway laws that prevent injuries and
save lives, and a listing of the States that have enacted those laws. The
initial report and the follow- up report in 2008 have provided the impetus
for more States to pass roadway laws that protect lives and prevent
injuries.
ENA is also
working to make emergency departments safer by pressing for Occupational
Safety and
Health Administration standards that would help prevent violence in
emergency departments. A recent ENA report on workplace violence found that
more than half of emergency nurses have been physically assaulted on the job
in the past 3 years and scores more endure verbal abuse regularly. Violence
in the emergency department adversely affects patient care and also puts
patients themselves at risk of assault or worse.
Madam
Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking the Emergency Nurses
Association and its more than 37,000 members for their commitment to
establishing public policies that reduce the need for emergency care and for
working to improve the quality of that care when it is needed. I also ask
that my colleagues join me in congratulating ENA on the occasion of its 40th
anniversary.
Sign Up for E-Mail Alerts on Issues Related to
Your State
New features have been added to ENA's Legislative
Action Center that enable "E-Mail Alerts" to be sent directly to those ENA
members who reside in the state or district of the congressional members
that we need to target. These alerts provide strategic information to affect
key policy issues of interest to ENA and emergency nursing. Go to
http://capwiz.com/ena/home/
to sign up for future alerts.
Wanted - A Few Good Nurses
ENA Launches EN411 Program
ENA is establishing the Emergency Nurse 411 Program
(EN411) to encourage our members to cultivate long-term relationships with
federal legislators, convey ENA’s legislative and regulatory priorities, and
affect the final outcome of federal legislation important to emergency
nursing. Our goal is to have at least one ENA member in each of the 435
congressional districts across the country, as well as assigned to each of
the 100 Senators, to help promote ENA's legislative agenda.
For information regarding the Program
and for a copy of the application, go to
http://www.ena.org/government/Nurse_411/default.asp.
Prior political advocacy experience is not necessary to
join the EN411 Program!
