APNA News - The Psychiatric Nursing Voice

President's Message: Growing in Leaps and Bounds
It's June, and APNA is buzzing with the season's spirit of growth. Like the plants and trees around us, APNA is blossoming with new members and new initiatives. Last month APNA's membership reached 9,000 for the first time, marking an impressive 51% increase over the past 5 years. Cont'd

Member Profile: Self-Discovery Through Art
Last year, Nidhi Chabora, an APRN working on the big island of Hawaii, won the APNA Award for Innovation for her program Self Discovery Through Art (SDTA). SDTA is a collaboration between Chabora and Nancy Jo Moses, BS, MA, who is an accomplished public school visual art educator with 37 years of teaching experience. During the month of May this year, the community of Hilo, Hawaii celebrated Mental Health Awareness month with a special art show entitled "Self-Discovery" at the Wailoa Arts & Cultural Center. Cont'd

Member News: Your Colleagues in the News
Nancy Hanrahan to lead Penn Nursing's development of a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) toolkit; Bernadette Melnyk named Editor for STTI's Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing; Janet Stewart, RN-C featured in article Husband and wife therapy team treat couples on the brink at luxury retreats; Bonnie Strollo named to Child Care Council Inc. Board; Rose Walter chosen to serve on American Nurses Credentialing Center Panel of Standards Setting More Info

Annual Conference : Register Now
It's time to register for the premier event in psychiatric mental health nursing: the APNA 27th Annual Conference! This year's conference will be held in charming San Antonio, Texas, October 9-12. Attendees will earn up to 25.5 contact hours onsite and have the opportunity to earn more than 60 additional contact hours afterwards via podcasts in the APNA eLearning Center. But the conference isn't just about continuing education, it's also a chance to connect with colleagues, recharge your practice, and reaffirm yourself professionally, not to mention throw on some cowboy boots and do a line-dance or two! Register Now | Conference Program

CPI: Recap
Just last week, more than 460 nurses joined us in Reston, VA for the APNA 11th Annual Clinical Psychopharmacology Institute. The conference this year focused on dimensions of psychopharmacologic practice across the lifespan, with sessions addressing bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, sleep, electronic health records, child & adolescent issues, and more. In a special presentation, Keynote speaker and NIMH Director Tom Insel was honored with an APNA Scientific Partnership Award for the partnership that the NIMH has afforded APNA in recent years. Cont'd

Recovery Pearls: Acceptance vs. Healing, by Kathleen McCoy
Acceptance of the need for recovery is essential for self-direction through the continuum of recovery to fulfillment (McGrath, Jarrett). A new day has come: personal recovery is now paralleled by informed institutions embracing hope and recovery, rather than wholesale chronic degeneration. Cont'd

At the Table: From the White House to...
Did you know that APNA continuously works to maintain visibility for our profession and build strategic alliances through attendance at events across the nation? Recently, Executive Director Nicholas Croce, Jr., MS attended the White House's National Conference on Mental Health, member Sandra J. Weiss, PhD, DNSc, RN, FAAN represented APNA at a Summit on Young Children's Mental Health and Socio-Emotional Wellbeing, Nurse Educator Cheryl Toulouse, PhD, RN attended an Oral Health Summit on behalf of APNA, and Communications Coordinator Meaghan Trimyer went to a panel on Innovations in Primary Care: Expanding Capacity to Treat Mental Health and Other Chronic Diseases. View their Reports

Call to Action: Vote!
Support your APNA colleagues with just a few clicks of the mouse - take a moment to cast your vote in the APNA Elections! All ballots must be submitted online or postmarked no later than July 5, 2013.(Remember, each member can only vote once - if you have already voted, thank you!)Go directly to the ballot and VOTE: www.apna.org/Vote | Election Guide

Awards & Honors: APNF Grants and APNA Annual Awards
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2013 APNF Grants and APNA Annual Awards! Two psychiatric mental health nurses received grants of $5000 each to fund their research and nine nurses received APNA Annual awards for their professional achievements. Want to personally congratulate these PMH Nursing superstars? Send them a note of congratulations via Member Bridge! APNF Grant Recipients | Annual Awards Recipients

Resource Roundup: New Resources in the APNA Resource Center

In a panel attended by APNA, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the GE Foundation, and the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center announced a new national institute focused on replicating Project ECHO and launched an innovative mental health clinic that could serve as a model for expanding access to mental health care across the country. Full Story

Up to 30% of currently uninsured adults who would receive health care coverage through state Medicaid expansions are individuals living with mental illness, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reported. Full Story To read the report, Medicaid Expansion and Mental Health Care, click here. (PDF file)

The American Nurses Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Nurses Association, announced making a $75,000 grant to the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) to develop a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) toolkit to help civilian registered nurses (RNs) better assess and treat PTSD in the nation's veterans and military service members. Penn Nursing’s Nancy Hanrahan, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN, will lead the project at the university. Full Story (PDF file)

The Obama administration kicked off the Health Insurance Marketplace education effort with a new, consumer-focused HealthCare.gov website and the 24-hours-a-day consumer call center to help Americans prepare for open enrollment and ultimately sign up for private health insurance. The new tools will help Americans understand their choices and select the coverage that best suits their needs when open enrollment in the new Health Insurance Marketplace begins October 1. Full Story

Pre-treatment scans of brain activity predicted whether depressed patients would best achieve remission with an antidepressant medication or psychotherapy, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. "Our goal is to develop reliable biomarkers that match an individual patient to the treatment option most likely to be successful, while also avoiding those that will be ineffective," explained Helen Mayberg, M.D., of Emory University, Atlanta, a grantee of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health. Full Story

New research on mice suggests that many commonly prescribed drugs are capable of reducing the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease, reported PsychCentral.com. Led by Giulio Maria Pasinetti, M.D., Ph.D., researchers at The Mount Sinai Medical Center used a computer algorithm to screen 1,600 commercially available medications to assess their impact on the brain accumulation of beta-amyloid. The study, published online in the journal PLoS One, researchers found that currently available medications prescribed for conditions such as hypertension, depression, and insomnia were found to either to block or to enhance the accumulation of beta-amyloid, the component of amyloid plaques. Full Story

In a recent National Council webcast, healthcare expert and strategic consultant Dan Mendelson of Avalere Health, discussed current and upcoming federal policy initiatives that will affect the way behavioral health provider organizations do business. He examined the current political context for these trends and assessed their implications for healthcare marketplace and care delivery systems. Click here to watch the webcast or here to view the slides.

On June 7, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) reintroduced the Positive Aging Act, S.1119, which will improve the accessibility and quality of mental health services for the country’s rapidly growing older population. The Positive Aging Act is designed to make mental health services for older adults an integral part of primary care services in community settings and to extend them to other settings where older adults reside and receive services. The evidence-based services under this legislation will be provided by interdisciplinary teams of mental health professionals working in collaboration with other providers of health and social services. Full Story

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval has signed a bill that would allow most nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the state to prescribe medications without having to first get permission from a doctor. The new law is expected to help poor and rural Americans gain access to more comprehensive health care services and will help make Obamacare implementation smoother, reported ThinkProgress.org. Full Story

The way nurse practitioners now can care for patients with a doctor's supervision may help alleviate a shortage of accessible health care in rural areas of Missouri. New allowances in state law on the practices of nurse practitioners was prompted by legislation filed by Kathy Swan, who represents Cape Girardeau in the Missouri House of Representatives, reported the Southeast Missourian. Language from Swan's House Bill 936 was added during the legislative session ended May 17 in the Senate as an amendment to House Bill 315, recently signed into law by Gov. Jay Nixon. Full Story

On June 14, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease: 2013 Update. The first-ever National Alzheimer's Plan, initially released in May 2012, was mandated by the bipartisan National Alzheimer's Project Act (P.L. 111-375), which Congress passed unanimously in 2010. The 2013 Update includes a new timeline for achieving its first goal – prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer's disease by 2025 - and a review of progress over the past year. Full Story

Mental health professionals need to be part of primary care teams to ensure that patients get complete care that addresses both mental and physical health, according to Norman B. Anderson, PhD, CEO of APA. In response to an audience question regarding the comorbidity of substance abuse and physical health, Anderson said, "In this country, for too long we have separated substance abuse and mental health problems from physical health problems. They need to be integrated." "There need to be mental health professionals as part of primary care teams," he added, noting that while physicians should routinely screen for depression and substance abuse, having a mental health professional on the team would ensure that patients get immediate care and referrals if necessary. Full Story

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is releasing a new toolkit designed to help states' service agencies better assess and meet the behavioral health needs of their communities. The Behavioral Health Needs Assessment Toolkit provides states with detailed information on the latest behavioral health statistics as well as step-by-step instructions to generate projections related to what areas will need to be addressed in the future. Full Story

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is Accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.