Bill Klaproth (host): This is Today in Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. I'm Bill Klaproth, and with me today is Kelly Haeckel and Torrey Trzcienski, as we talk about enhancing your organization's policy advocacy efforts. Kelly and Torrey, welcome.

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Thank you, Bill. We're so glad to be here.

Host: Yeah.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Thank you, Bill. It's a beautiful day here at AONL.

Host: It's always a beautiful day at AONL. I love that. It's never a bad day here. No. It's my favorite conference. Yeah. It's a lot of energy. You know why? Because I get to talk to people like you all day. It's fantastic. It's the best job in the world. Excellent nurse leaders. You guys do amazing work. So I just wanna point that out. Point that complex. Point complex. Yes. Yes it is.

Yes. Well, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. We're talking about enhancing your organization's policy advocacy efforts.

So Kelly, let me start with you. Why is this important? Why is it important that we have nurse leaders helping to shape policy advocacy efforts?

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Well, thanks for asking. I think one of the biggest things that everyone needs to be aware of is that nursing is the nation's largest healthcare profession. There's over 4.7 million nurses registered. And of that, we're voted the most trusted profession. And we need to use our voice, get to the table in order to make sure that we're talking about public health, patient care, nurse practice, and also making sure that we're financially sound.

Host: So that last part, financially sound, how do we help with that? Are there advocacy efforts that help with that?

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: So I think, some of what we want to talk about today is how is it that we actually bring everyone in a structured format, in order to have the people who have a really large voice, across healthcare, which again is the registered nurses.

And so our goal today is to really make sure that we share with you, how is it that you can create a structure at your organization to be an ongoing voice? Because that's most important, to be impactful. We know a lot about the healthcare industry and of that it's our duty, to serve and share this information and knowledge with our legislators.

Host: So you said, nursing, it's the largest healthcare organization. It only seems proper that you would have a seat at the table for these things. Is that, would that be correct? Yeah.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Yeah. It's the largest healthcare profession. And so, yes, but at the same time, this is not something that's always at the forefront of nurses and nurse leaders. And that's the reason why we believe that we know in order to get work done, we have to be in Washington. We have to be at our state and local level in order to make decisions. And those decisions are governmental decisions.

Host: So how do we do that? How did you address this issue? How do we build awareness for this?

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: So healthcare is in the legislation more so now than it really has ever been. A year over year, we see that there's more and more bills that are impacting and addressing healthcare concerns or issues. And so of that, as a chief nurse, I wanted to find those passionate leaders, which is definitely Torrey, and a few other people.

And so of that, we decided to put together a structure and we called it Healthcare Policy Awareness and Advocacy Coalition. For short, we call it HPAC. We made sure that it's the people who have the energy that really want to, not everybody wants to talk about legislation and bills and what's going on at the state and federal government.

But it's those people who are like-minded and that they want to make change and make change from a policy perspective. So of that, we made sure that we educated people on what this HPAC was about. And then we collected data and did actually a research study to say, where is it?

Where is people like to truly did a, an assessment of understanding, do people understand legislation and policy at all? And we identified even just at our organization at Middlesex, that we have a long ways to go.

Host: Yeah. Um, because you, as you said, people don't normally want to pay attention to this or get involved in these types of things, so I could see where there would be a lack of awareness. Is that right?

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Correct. Well, and I think it's. What is it that I can do and how is it that I can get started and how is it that I can make a difference? I think just taking one step forward is people aren't necessarily sure and they could also be a little hesitant.

Host: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So Torrey, your thoughts on HPAC?

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Yeah. HPAC's been really great for us. It took a core group of people who had a passion for this. Everybody looks every day for that way that you fill your cup in healthcare and, having that ability to advocate is one of them. There's so many bills, like Kelly said, where things are buried in the bottom of legislation and it's not about your political party or any of that stuff.

It's about how we are able to get the job done and do it in a way that makes sense for healthcare leaders. So we've been engaged. A group of us went down to Washington last year to see Advocacy Day on the Capitol Hill. See how government works. I was a history major prior to being a nurse. So my history passion shows up and it was about saying, okay, well that simple class is, how does a bill become a law?

And how do those laws affect the work that we do? And who's making the decision for those laws? And do they have the knowledge about what those decisions are going to affect? And if they don't, then we, the nurses need to educate them to make sure that they understand this legislation's great. But did you think about the impact of these things that are gonna help the care providers or the patients at the other end and some of those aha moments with legislators to say, oh no, we hadn't really thought about that piece, and well, that's how that's gonna translate to the workforce.

So we like where you're going, but perhaps you need to know this knowledge, whether it be on workplace violence or staffing ratios, or whatever that might be.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: I think the nurse leader could honestly bring a lot of understanding to legislators. I think that, I've learned a ton through this. And of that, people who are legislators, they're making decisions not only about, what's going on in the hospital, how hospitals are getting reimbursed, but also how we're gonna pave the next road. And we're gonna repair the bridges and we're going to address the plumbing issues. So we are the experts.

So nurse leaders really need to lean in on this concept and really support advocacy.

Host: Is this held at a local hospital level, these advocacy efforts, or have you banded together as nurse leaders as a group to attack this issue? Where does this happen? Can this happen at a local hospital level where you're

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Yes.

Host: Doing these types of advocacy efforts, would that be just contacting your local politicians then?

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: So, what we're talking about today, Bill, is what we did at Middlesex Health. Yeah. In Middletown, Connecticut. Okay. And so this is very local.

Host: This isn't a consortium of nurse leaders across the country yet. This is a local effort. Oh. Oh, there it is. We buried the lead. There it is. She let it out. She let the cat out of the bag.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: No, I, think it's really just. There's a lot of excitement that can be behind this. but it's truly, we're starting local. I think that's really important. You have to start local because that's the news,

Host: And then you're going national. You're going big.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Mean, the sky is the line. You're going big. I don't know if I wanna go on the record for that, but. I think that it's important that we start local. And so we're starting at our community hospital in Middletown, Connecticut.

Host: Yeah. Well I think that's important to know. That's why I was asking. So this is something that starts locally at the grassroots effort and if it grassroots Yes. Catches on and it can turn into something that becomes a national movement, that would be great. But yeah, that's really important that it starts locally then, right?

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Well, yeah, and it starts with getting our staff engaged and letting them know, you know, these are the bills that affect us. This is what the legislation's voting for, and we'll come back and say, should we support these as an organization? How does it affect us? Should we not support them? Should we think about just following and see where it goes? How do we track these bills and bringing together its multi-specialty.

So we have APRNs, we have home care nurses. We have different areas because we all come together under one umbrella of an organization, but the impact for certain areas, we want to make sure that we're, again, using our collective voices of our organization together. We don't wanna be working against each other, so we wanna make sure that we're all in this together. We all have the right information at our fingertips, and that we can move forward as a group for what makes sense for our organization.

Host: Yeah. So let me ask you this. How would someone get started? You have to understand what's out there, what legislative priorities or legislative things you can get behind. How do you get started? If somebody's listening to this podcast saying, this is great. Where do I start, Kelly?

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Well, I, can say that we started. It was a sense of knowledge that we didn't have. So a core group, Jen, Betty, Torrey and I, we came together and we said, okay, you know what?

I, foresee that nursing needs to lean in on what's going on in governmental politics, I'll call it. Again, I wanna just reemphasize that it's a nonpartisan environment that we have, and it's really important that you develop a proper structure. So of that, we said, okay, who should be at the table in order to talk about bills and what's going on at our state level?

I do, as the chief nurse, I wanted to just share that, this kind of sparked my attention further when there was a lot of talk about nursing ratios and mandated staffing in the legislation. So I wanted to really understand it more. I believe that as nurses we're lifelong learners and we have to lean in and understand.

So of that, we formed a multidisciplinary team, and of that we have another, vice president who sits there. I'm more of a facilitator. I'm not a chair because you need to have someone who has some influence, and direction, but at the same time keep it the nonpartisan environment. And keep us kind of on track.

Host: Yeah.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: I'm grateful that I have wonderful co-chairs of Torrey and Betty, and Jen as well. And so of that we created who should be there. We created not only that, but we also made sure that we knew where is this committee or council, or we call it a coalition, where are they gonna report to? You always have to have a governing structure.

We're a magnet six time organization, which is a really big deal. And of that, we really emphasize professional governance. That's who we are, it's what we do. So that's how we've actually structured to have that oversight of our HPAC coalition.

Host: Yeah, it's a good place to start. Torrey, thoughts from you?

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Yeah, I mean, I think how you get this going is you, find people who have a passion. Not everybody's gonna feel passionate about this. Some people are passionate about all sorts of healthcare. That's the beauty of nursing is there's so many avenues. But you find that core group of inspired leaders that say, Hey, we wanna make a difference.

And then you shoot for the stars. But you start small. You need to get it. Each nurse at a time who might be interested in this. And you look at small tests of change, small policy changes that they can focus on because you have to. You have to have something that they can see that's tangible to the care that they provide, and there can be some wins for it.

And then you make sure that they have the knowledge base to be able to act upon that. They know who their local congressmen and state senators are, representatives so that they know who to reach out to. They know how to communicate. Whether it be via email, phone call, send a letter, show up at a town hall, whatever those things might be.

And then you just, you start building that momentum, but you find that the key to all of this is you find that passion to say, okay, when we took our oath of responsibility as, as nurses, it wasn't just to each and every patient, but it was to all of our patients, which is our communities as well, and say, how can we use what we know, our knowledge base and our expertise to affect the care of others in a positive way?

And to make sure that those people who are making the legislative decisions can also know, what it is that we want to see done for healthcare.

Host: So Torrey, it sounds like you first have to find people that are passionate about this, which makes a lot of sense to really drive this and move this forward. Can you talk about the results as well, Torrey? The fruits of your labor? What has happened with this?

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: So, the fruits of our labor so far have been really good. Obviously, from a starting point, you start at really zero. Zero. So I mean, there was only one place to go but up, which was wonderful for us.

Host: I like that. Good attitude. Good.

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: I mean, it's always, good to start there. So we've actually seen that with our advocacy efforts. We've so far had 120% increase in the knowledge base for our staff. We've increased the number of bills that we're tracking at the state level. We've built this core group of people for HPAC who come back and say, Hey, you know, there's emails that come every day that's, oh, the ENA, the emergency nurses are following this, the APRNs are following that. And then you start to bring in the staff. We actually were able to get five nurses to participate and give oral testimony for a bill, related to staffing ratios. And we empowered them to say, this is the information for you, this is the knowledge that you need.

And we let them sit with the legislators and speak on their behalf. And then we'll continue to work. There's a group of us who are excited to go back to AONL in Washington this year, and continue our growth and knowledge journey there so that we can bring that back to our organization, to our peers, and to our staff to support them and we can continue to build.

Host: Yeah, great results. I mean, so now like you said, starting from nothing, you've really built a story surrounding this. One that other hospitals and healthcare systems can look at and go, okay, we can do this, we can do something similar, which is important.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Yeah. Yeah. And I, think it's transferable. As a lot of this breakout sessions that we have, it's nurse leader overload. I wanna make sure to mention that. It's like, okay, we're gonna do one more thing. Well, okay. Make sure that you can scale it the way that you need to. So for example, there's two bills that we're really passionate about, that's what we're keeping our eyes on. And then we're gonna go from there. But I definitely think that this first year out of the gate is that we're just going to honestly build our understanding and our knowledge. I do think it would be really important, um, or I'd be remiss to say that the partnerships that you create at your local level are really important.

So not only your local leaders, and again, those key experts that have more expertise in the community of where your organization is, is really important because there's so much going on there. But then at the same time, just, dream a little bit bigger and make sure that you have relationships with your hospital association. Hospital associations, they're the ones who are also really watching bills and the impact to the hospital and patient care and anything in between. So, I have to say, I don't know if there's anything more that we wanna add, but I just can't emphasize enough is that, sometimes you have to lean in really hard and see, and take a little chance to say, okay, is this something that's going to grab everyone's attention or not?

And it can't be like one more thing. It has to, like what Torrey's mentioned a few times that you have to be passionate about it because this kind of stuff takes a long time. It's not, okay, we're gonna do this and we're gonna get that outcome. We have to also have patience too.

Host: Yeah. Having that structure in place, like you say.

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Mm-hmm.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah. Torrey, anything else you wanna add? Final thoughts?

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: No, I mean, I think the other thing to just know is that we're very fortunate in Middlesex to have a CNO who's so supportive of these things. You have to have that C-suite support and those executive leaders that are gonna get behind this because it does take some time and some effort to do it, but, you know it, it's wonderful and inspiring to be surrounded by such a great group of leaders that will support this as well.

Host: Absolutely. Well, thank you both for your time today. This has really been great. Kelly and Torrey, thank you.

Kelly Haeckel, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Thanks, Bill.

Torrey Trzcienski, MSN, RN, NE-BC: Thank you, Bill.

Host: Yeah, once again, that is Kelly Haeckel and Torrey Trzcienski. And for more information, please visit aonl.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is Today in nursing leadership. Thanks for listening.