NAHN is blessed with extraordinary national leaders. They are dedicated, well-informed, passionate and committed to bringing the NAHN's mission to reality. Starting in 2018, NAHN will begin elections every year. The Nominating Committee is actively seeking candidates and is presenting a webinar and other resources for members who are considering running for office. The webinar will be offered on Wednesday, March 7 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. It will be recorded for those who are unable to attend the live session. 
NAHN relies on our volunteer leaders to create strategies and plans, represent the organization, communicate with members, create resources, lead committee and chapter activities, and carry out programs that help support Hispanic nurses and promote health in the Hispanic community. NAHN needs you to consider leadership at the national level. If you feel called to serve, I encourage you to participate in the webinar, read the information resources, or speak with those who serve or who have served nationally as an officer, on the Board or as a member of the Nominating Committee. We need you! 

Immediately after the conclusion of the very successful Latino Leadership Institute, (Excellent job Norma, Cresta and the whole committee!,) the NAHN Board engaged in a very intense strategic planning session. If you have never engaged in one of these sessions most of them alternate between maddening tedium and bursts of creativity and pure inspiration. This session was no exception. At the end of the session we achieved a number of important goals that I will report on in future blog posts:
1) We re-examined NAHN's purpose and created a new purpose statement that captured the soul of NAHN's engagement with nurses and the community.
2) We worked very hard to narrow our focus so that we could devote more resources to items that were evaluated as critical by the board.
3) We created two focused objectives for 2018, two for 2019 and two for 2020. You will learn a lot more about these objectives as the board is able to flesh out work plans and start to work on establishing and achieving milestones.
I want to thank the NAHN board for their focused effort and perseverance. There were times during the process where everyone was frustrated and we had a very difficult time moving forward. In the end all those efforts paid off! Be on the lookout for more information soon.

At their June 20 meeting, the NAHN Board of Directors acted on a request from the Policy and Advocacy Committee to endorse the activities of the Better Medicare Alliance. The Better Medicare Alliance is a coalition of advocacy organizations, aging service
agencies, plans, providers, retiree organizations, and beneficiaries. BMA Allies, as
these organizations are called, commit to the mission of BMA to support and sustain
Medicare Advantage as an option in Medicare. Allies agree to work with BMA to
promote the value of MA as the part of Medicare that offers health coverage that is
comprehensive, high quality, affordable, and valued by Medicare beneficiaries for the
enhanced benefits, affordability, simplicity, and care coordination it offers.

There was a consensus among committee members that NAHN should join
numerous other nursing and medical organizations in endorsing BMA. Some of these include: ANA, National Hispanic Medical Association, The Latino Coalition, National Hispanic Council on Aging, National Black Nurses Association, and the National Minority Quality Forum. As a partner of the Better Medicare Alliance NAHN may occasionally be asked to participate in discussions or presentations, provide written material regarding Medicare Advantage and its impact on the Hispanic community and other activities consistent with both NAHN's mission and the mission of the Better Medicare Alliance. 

Special thanks to the NAHN Policy Committee for their work on this issue!

One of the most important things you can do to make NAHN stronger is to share NAHN with others. It is one of the wonderful truths of organizations that they grow stronger when they are shared. When you give others information about NAHN the benefits come back to you and to all members of NAHN. Here are some tips to help you share information with other Hispanic Nurses that don't know about NAHN.

1. Talk with other members of NAHN to find out how they share NAHN with others. 
2. Make use of tools available through NAHN national. Brochures about NAHN and digital flyers that explain NAHN's mission, activities and benefits are available at no cost. Just e-mail Maria at info@thehispanicnurses.org to receive copies or e-mail resources.
3. Bring community opportunities back to your chapter to identify opportunities to serve the Hispanic community and other fellow nursing organizations. 
4. Share your successes and challenges with chapter members, other members of NAHN, and NAHN national. We are always working on new approaches and tools that help NAHN accomplish our mission more effectively.

Please let us know how we can help you share NAHN with others!

The NAHN staff is here to serve you. Because we have several staff members, I thought it might be good to let pass along some information about each staff member and what they do.

When you call NAHN, you will probably be speaking with Nakia Christoff, our Director of administration. Nakia is very focused on helping members, answering member questions and routing requests to the appropriate staff member. Also, Nakia is a key supporter of chapters. 

Teri Saylor is the director of communications for NAHN. Teri prepares the weekly e-blast, helps prepare content for the NAHN website, and creates press releases and other supporting material. 

Donna Blake-Weems is focused on NAHN events and meeting planning. If you have questions regarding conference registration, exhibiting or sponsorship, and conference programming Donna is the key contact person. 

Cresta Archuletta is focused on NAHN's governance, committee support, grant support, scholar support and is engaged in all aspects of NAHN's operations. Jim Booth is engaged in the same broad areas as Cresta.

NAHN's staff is here to help you. If you have questions, concerns or suggestions, please take a moment to let us know. The main NAHN e-mail address that is routed to all staff members is info@thehispanicnurses.org.

When we gathered in Raleigh in January 2017, one of the things we discussed was creating a chapter poster to use during the opening session of the annual conference and also to display during the conference. We tied this to an icebreaker activity where we brainstormed the creation of a poster to record a pathway to build up a chapter with limited resources. As a result, it may have been unclear how to carry this forward as a display poster for the conference. Here are some suggestions regarding the implementation of the poster project.

1. Talk to other chapter members to determine what you'd like to communicate about your chapter. If you need a starting place, take a look at your last chapter report to see what your goals and activities were. 
2. Because poster space is limited, see if you can limit the key points to just a few. That will allow you to write bigger so that your poster is easier to read.
3. Don't forget to celebrate your successes on your poster, and to recognize chapter members who have received awards or helped the chapter achieve critical goals.
4. Record your chapter details on a poster board, along with the name of the chapter in large letters.
5. Make sure that a member of your chapter is present during the opening ceremonies to carry your poster and represent your chapter.
6. Your poster will be displayed along with other chapter posters in a display area near the conference general session room.
7. If your chapter is unable to make a poster, NAHN will provide a sign with your chapter name.

I'm excited to see all the information about chapters that the posters contain. I think think this represents a great opportunity for chapters to form alliances to become "sister chapters" and for chapter leaders to collect new ideas that can be implemented at the chapter level.

This week marks National Nurses Week in observance of the value nurses to our health and our lives. Each day we will post a special tribute to one aspect of nursing, culminating in a final post containing stories from you.

Last year during National Nurses Week NAHN collected stories about how nurses have made a difference in the lives of our NAHN family. On Friday, May 12, we will focus on "Stories."

Please send us a story of how a nurse influenced your life. Also, please share any stories you have received from others about how you made a difference in someone else’s life. These stories are powerful. They help us understand the importance of our work and grow as professionals and human beings. On Friday, we will be celebrating your stories. Please send your stories to Teri Saylor at communication@thehispanicnurses.org by noon, Thursday, May 11.

Sharing is one of the key elements of NAHN’s culture. Sharing among fellow members happens at the chapter and national level and leads to strong friendship bonds. Mentoring is a more formal structure of sharing. Our work to attract more young Hispanics to nursing has a strong mentoring component. We will be revisiting this soon as chapters are trained in how to use the tool kit for Hispanic Role Models in Health Care Careers grant. All NAHN members are welcome to volunteer as a mentor for young Hispanics who are considering nursing.

NAHN has also provided a new tool, called the NAHN leadership listserv, that chapter leaders can use to communicate with each other and with the NAHN Board of Directors. Chapter Presidents from all NAHN chapters have been added. We encourage chapters to add other officers to the listserv, as well. This is a great environment for sharing chapter ideas and for sister chapters to develop throughout the NAHN Chapter network.

As we approach the Phoenix conference this July, I hope you will consider the power of sharing face-to-face with other NAHN members from around the nation. Our annual conference is a celebration of sharing and one that is sure to enrich all those who are able to attend.

Thank you for sharing!