Reclaiming Our Priorities. I chose this as my theme for the year, because it speaks directly to the challenges most of us face in today’s healthcare environment.
To me, reclaiming means making something useful again. It is about quality and efficiency, about thinking and working smarter and, especially, about making the right decisions. Reclaiming implies asserting and demanding. Although it sometimes means demanding something of others, it always means demanding something of ourselves.
To reclaim our priorities, we must first be clear on what they are. Priorities can be traded, renegotiated or reprioritized – sometimes just for the moment, sometimes indefinitely. On those dark and stormy days at work it might be easy to lose sight of our priorities, but reclaiming them does not need to be complicated.
As the theme for AACN’s 2008 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition May 3 through 8 in Chicago, Ill., Reclaiming Our Priorities will set the stage for the premier educational conference for acute and critical care nurses.
Throughout the year, I will develop this theme in my monthly “President’s Note” column in AACN News. You can help. I ask that you simply answer one question:
What is the one priority of your work that is being overshadowed by competing priorities?
I invite you to e-mail your responses to me at priorities@aacn.org.
Dave Hanson, RN, MSN, CCRN, CNS
President, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
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