Advocate to Advance Interprofessional Healthcare in 2024!!
To welcome Spring 2024, your Public Policy Committee invites all NAP members to participate in our Virtual Hill Day on Wednesday, May 15th. Your immediate registration is needed to have ample time to schedule virtual visits with your legislative offices. Interprofessional teams will be provided with NAP an Issue Brief/Fact Sheet, References, Resources and Talking Points. As part of the registration process, you have access to and are asked to complete the NAP advocacy education and tutorial for the online platform we use to support our Virtual Hill Day activity. Please register today to join us for this very special opportunity!!
Building on the NAP history and founding mission to advance healthcare, it is a privilege to continuously work with NAP Public Policy Committee members to establish an annual public policy agenda, to increase reference and advocacy materials and to refresh resources in support of public policy efforts on behalf of the National Academies of Practice. In addition to the above-mentioned participation in the Virtual Hill Day, you will soon be asked to complete the annual survey to determine the public policy agenda and you are invited to join the Public Policy Committee. Throughout the year, members of the Public Policy Committee work diligently to provide NAP members with the most accurate information related to designated public policy topics. Sincere appreciation goes to Leigh Ann Frick and Deb Swain who have been working to prepare the resources to be used during this year’s Hill Visit event.
In 2023 members of the Public Policy Committee increased efforts to assure a NAP presence in the development and passage of interprofessional healthcare legislation. Shelly Simler and Jeanne Copeland lead our newly developed Legislative Cadre to assure ongoing communication with legislators. Teri Kennedy led a devoted team to create and publish the NAP Telepractice Tool Kit that has now been shared with many legislative offices and remains in public domain through the NAP website. Under the direction of Carolyn Higdon, we now have a process to track federal legislation related to the NAP Public Policy Agenda and this tracking has allowed us to identify the focal legislation for this year’s advocacy effort. NAP has produced several excellent resource materials that are periodically reviewed and refreshed. This effort is most ably led by Irma Ruebling and her team of reviewers. NAP documents and position papers that include the topics of interprofessional collaboration, telehealth, the opioid crisis, and the state of the science of interprofessional health care are found on the NAP website. All of these are available for you to use at your discretion for education, advocacy, and to advance interprofessional healthcare.
The Public Policy Committee is here for you and welcomes new committee members. As healthcare professionals we know there is much to be done to improve and advance interprofessional healthcare. The more committed members we have on the Public Policy Committee, the more issues we can address. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be proactively involved in developing interprofessional healthcare legislation? NAP members have the knowledge and skills to be integral to this process. Let’s make 2024 a hugely successful year through your participation in the NAP Virtual Hill Day on May 15th. Please register immediately to ensure your participation and for many visits to be scheduled. I look forward to being able to thank you for your efforts and to plan for our future in interprofessional healthcare.
Respectfully submitted,
Joanne Mizii Wisely, MA, CCC/SLP, ACE, FNAP
NAP VP Public Policy
Note: Virtual Hill visit registration closes on April 10, 2024 and the open call for committee volunteers closes on April 12, 2024.
