November, 2007

To: Region 5 CRNA's

From: Todd Herzog, CRNA

Dear Region 5 CRNAs:

WOW! What a ride this new job has been for me so far. I must tell you that after one AANA Board meeting and one Board orientation program/Joint Conference Committee Meeting, my head is swimming! Seriously, serving the members in Region 5 in this way is an incredible honor, and I thank you for your help and the kind expressions of support that I have received since the election results were reported. I promise to work hard for you and to maintain an open communication pathway. In that regard, I have several items to report to you:

AANA membership is growing very quickly

AANA membership has grown 3.3% in the past year and a stunning 36% in the past 10 years. There is both good and bad news about that. The good news is that dues revenues are up, we have not seen a decline in membership that could have resulted from recent increases in annual dues (thus signaling ongoing support for current policy), we are preparing more and more students every year to meet the growing demand for services, and we are more than keeping up with attrition in the CRNA workforce due to retirements. The bad news is that additions to support staff numbers at AANA Headquarters in Park Ridge have the existing building bursting at the seams. Help is on the way, however. In September the AANA Board went for a “Walk in the Woods” with AANA President Wanda Wilson to take a peek at the building that will soon become the AANA Annex. Literally two blocks from the present AANA Headquarters, the new building will provide much-needed space for expansion which should meet our needs well into the foreseeable future. Renovation will begin very soon.

AANA Medicare Payment Commission Established

Members’ voices at the 2007 Annual Meeting in Denver were heard loudly and clearly. Literally as soon as the Medicare Payment Resolution passed, the AANA Board began work on constituting the Payment Commission. Chaired by Past President Larry Hornsby, the Commission held its first preliminary meeting at the Joint Conference Committee in Chicago last week. All members of the Conference were able to experience an incredible presentation by Dr. Jeff Bauer, a health care economist and futurist, who peered into his crystal ball and made several interesting predictions about the path he believes health care in the United States will take in the coming years. I came away from that lecture feeling more optimistic than I have in some time. Clearly, CRNA services will become even more critically important in the coming years. But it will be incumbent upon all of us to think like more like entrepreneurs and business people. It will be critically important for us to engage the business community in the health care debates. It is they who write the checks to third party payers, and it is they who will have the power to demand high quality at a lower cost. We should learn from them because clearly, CRNAs are the answer and not the problem.

State Organizational Development Committee Voted a Standing Committee

AANA members overwhelmingly supported a by-laws change which made the SODC a permanent standing committee of AANA. This proposal was proudly sponsored by Immediate Past Region 5 Director Sharon Hensley, and spoke to the tremendous success of the funds created to support State Associations. Particularly important to states in Region 5 where 11 of 13 states qualify for Organizational Health Allocation funding as “small states”, there has been enormous benefit derived. We have seen many states move from barely functioning as effective state associations to a point where they are providing the member services required by the Essential Elements. In addition, Strategic Reserve funding has made the difference between advancing CRNA practice rights and a movement away from full practice. Is the situation ideal? Of course not…but we have come a very long way. In 2007, out of your $595.00 dues payment, $202.50 per member is returned to the state association, and $55.00 is set aside for the OHA and SRF funding. The SRF and OHA fund remains healthy with nearly $3 million in cash reserves!

Federal Government Affairs Office Moving

The lease will soon expire on the offices that the AANA Federal Government Affairs Department has occupied. The new offices will be located on the fifth floor of the Republic Square Building, two blocks from Union Station. AANA has secured a ten year lease, and construction was approved by the Board last week.

These items are only a few of the multitude of bits of information I hope to bring you in the coming months and years. I truly look forward to seeing you either in your home state or at the AANA National Meetings. Please don’t forget the AANA 75th Annual Meeting August 9-13, 2008 in Minneapolis. Registration materials are now online at the AANA members only website at aana.com.