Policy Agenda
Legislative Advocacy is a Top Priority of AMSN
As the only national professional organization representing the voice of medical-surgical nursing, our strategic mission for patients and their access to high-quality, affordable health care, and focus on issues affecting the work environments and practice of our med-surg nurses, as seen below. AMSN Board of Directors has developed a legislative priority agenda in 2019 to clearly define the priority areas for our med-surg nurses.
AMSN Policy Agenda
AMSN is the voice of medical-surgical patients, and medical-surgical nurses at the state and federal level. AMSN Legislative Consultant Frank Purcell shares the strength of our collective voice in advocacy.
The AMSN legislative Priority Agenda Includes:
Safe Staffing for Nurses
Nurses and their expertise understanding and addressing patient acuity, not one- size-fits-all mandates, are critical to improving and ensuring safe patient care. We advance evidence-based initiatives promoting safe staffing to improve patient health care quality and access, and to reduce health care costs.
Read Our Safe Staffing Statement
Social Determinants of Health
Where health care delivery systems connect with social determinants of health (SDOH), health care has a responsibility and an opportunity to be part of the solution. Medical-surgical nurses support leveraging their roles in patient discharge and transfer processes to advance evidence-based initiatives addressing SDOH to improve health and reduce health care costs.
Read our Social Determinants Statement
Nurse Workforce Development
The future supply of nurses is critical to patient access to high quality care in every
environment, particularly with our aging population and among people lacking access to care. Medical-surgical nurses promote patient access to high quality health care by supporting reauthorization, improvement and full funding of federal nurse workforce development programs.
Read Our Workforce Development Statement
Medical-Surgical Nurses in Leadership
Our organization actively seeks opportunities to successfully place medical-surgical nurses in health care stakeholder advisory bodies and leadership positions at the state and federal levels and within the health care sector.
Read Our Medical-Surgical Nurses in Leadership Statement
Safe Workplaces and Professional Respect
In the interest of patient safety and healthy, effective systems for health care delivery, we identify and promote evidence-based strategies that improve workplace safety for medical-surgical nurses and advance their professional recognition.
Read Our Safe Workplaces and Professional Respect Statement
Opioid Crisis
We promote implementation and funding of evidence-based policy to prevent and address the national opioid crisis, including the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act (P.L. 115-271) and related measures at the federal and state levels.
Read Our Opioid Crisis Statement