Nearly 700 nurses and nursing students attended the 29th Nurse Advocacy Day.
The Missouri Nurses Association has sponsored the event since 1986 in order to bring voices to the forefront of public policy.
Members met with legislators and took a tour of the capitol building.
The event helps nurses and students see how their voice can be heard in state government, MONA President Rebecca McClanahan said.
“So it’s a really good learning experience for them, but while they are learning they are also influencing the process,” McClanahan said. “They are truly advocating on behalf our patients across the state and on behalf of issues that are important to nurses.”
Nurses sometimes forget that advocacy can be just as important as medicine, MONA member Mary Davis said.
“I think as nurses our primary focus is to take care of patients and a lot of times we forget that we have influence over some of these policies that affect patients,” Davis said.
MONA CEO Jill Kliethermes presented MONA’s top legislative priorities, which members discussed with legislators throughout the day. The priorities include Medicaid expansion, creating a prescription drug monitoring program, and providing more prescriptive authority for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses.
McClanahan said Missouri is one of the most restrictive states in regard to prescriptive authority for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses and is the only state without a prescription drug monitoring program.
“Nurses voices are highly valued in the state capital,” McClanahan said. “They just aren’t always quite loud enough, but they’re highly valued.”
