AANA Presents Daniel D. Vigness Federal Political Director Award to PANA

The American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA) honored Lt. Col. Laura Wiggins, DNP, CRNA, with the Daniel D. Vigness Federal Political Director Award at its Mid-Year Assembly, held in Washington, D.C. on April 2-6. Wiggins, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), is staff CRNA with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh and chief nurse for the critical care transport team in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

“It is an honor to receive the Federal Political Director Award. Promoting and safeguarding the profession and helping to work towards regulations and legislation that allow CRNAs to practice at their full scope has been both an honor and a privilege,” Wiggins said. “However, all my work could not be accomplished without the support of the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists and my employers. I thank them for providing me with the resources and time to build the relationships that have allowed me to be a successful advocate for all CRNAs.”

Wiggins has been the Federal Political Director (FPD) for the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists (PANA) for the past two years and serves on its Board of Trustees. In 2019 she helped lead more than 180 CRNAs and students enrolled in nurse anesthesiology programs to lobby in Harrisburg on behalf of the profession. She is the former Chief Nurse for the 911th Aeromedical Staging Squadron and former Critical Care Air Transport Team member and has been deployed to support numerous international situations throughout her career.

According to her nominator, Wiggins is a natural leader with a passion for nurse anesthesia. “Whether leading a medical team as the anesthesia director for military operations in Kyrgyzstan, or providing obstetric anesthesia in Pittsburgh, Laura carries herself with a sense of dignity and skill that reflects the best of our profession.”

In addition, she was lauded for her hands-on leadership early in the COVID-19 pandemic. According to her nomination, weeks before Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf even issued a formal stay-at-home order for the commonwealth, the PANA board began researching options to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to its members. Wiggins relied on her military expertise to review mask options and determine the best fit for PANA to provide to members to keep them safe.

“Laura knew early on how important it was for PANA to not disrupt the supply chain already working on PPE for local hospitals and other facilities around Pennsylvania,” cited her nomination. “Therefore, she spearheaded a discussion with a small 3D printing company in southwestern Pennsylvania. Wiggins began to work with the co-owner of the company to design a 3D-printed mask that would keep our members safe. Laura Wiggins oversaw all of the details, even recruiting a biochemist and an engineer from Stanley Black & Decker to support the cause. After numerous back-and-forth phone calls, texts, virtual calls, and prototype designs, the mask was ready to offer to members as a complimentary benefit. In the initial two hours of sending the e-mail to alert members about the free product offering, PANA received over 400 requests. When completed, PANA shipped over 1,200 PPE masks around the state within four weeks, and this was largely due to the work of Lt. Col Laura Wiggins.”

She is a clinical instructor at the University of Pittsburgh Nurse Anesthesia Program for various courses, including Difficult Airway Course; Regional Anesthesia; and Obstetrics Anesthesia. As a critical care nurse in the Air Force Reserves, Wiggins directly supervises more than 60 medical military personnel while managing all nursing services and flight member activities. In addition, she is an independent contractor with Anesthesiology Services Network, providing anesthesia services for a Level One Trauma Center with 24 operating rooms and diverse areas, including neurosurgery, vascular, thoracic, orthopedics, general, gynecology, pediatrics, trauma, and obstetrics.

Wiggins received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Pennsylvania State University in State College, and a master’s degree in nursing with a specialization in nurse anesthesia area from Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. She earned a Doctor of Nurse Practice degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

As advanced practice nurses, CRNAs are members of one of the most trusted professions according to Gallup. CRNAs provide anesthesia care across all settings and in all patient populations and are the primary anesthesia providers in rural and underserved areas and on the battlefield in forward surgical teams.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, nurse anesthetists across the country have been essential in addressing the deadliest part of the disease in addition to providing top-of-the-line anesthesia care. They have served as experts in airway management, hemodynamic monitoring, management of patients on ventilators, and overall management of critically ill patients.

About the Daniel D. Vigness Federal Political Director Award

The Federal Political Director of the Year Award, established in 2001, was renamed the Daniel D. Vigness Federal Political Director Award in 2013 in tribute and memory of its first winner. It is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of the national healthcare agenda of CRNAs by coordinating grassroots CRNA involvement at the state level or through special contributions to the federal political process.

Finding Health & Wellness During a Pandemic

It’s hard to believe, but CRNA Week in Pennsylvania this year is starting to look and feel a lot like CRNA Week last year.

We may not be locked down in 2022 like we were in 2021, but hospitals and health-care facilities once again are facing critical staffing shortages, with some areas setting COVID-19 case records.

Clearly, the pandemic is not finished. The dizzying speed of omicron’s spread has left everyone scratching their heads and questioning what they know about COVID-19.

Through it all, certified registered nurse anesthetists have remained on the frontline, putting their advanced education and training to work to care for critically ill patients.

This year, CRNA Week in Pennsylvania is a tribute to every nurse anesthetist who courageously has stepped forward to serve during this pandemic and who works daily to save lives and provide the best possible care in a variety of settings.

Thank you for all you do to serve our profession so honorably and your patients so faithfully.

All of us are under enormous pressure. To be the most effective we can be, however, we need to ensure we take care of ourselves, so we are able to care for others.

One of my top priorities as PANA president is promoting health and wellness.

Health and wellness have always been important in our profession, but they take on a new meaning during this prolonged pandemic, as health-care providers, including CRNAs and SRNAs, confront a disproportionate share of physical and emotional strain.

Self-care in the workplace and at home is essential. Health and wellness issues span a wide spectrum --- from finding ways to reduce risks and limit stress on the job to making positive choices and managing lifestyles to improve health and fitness.

We are best for others when we are at our own personal best.

PANA values the importance of pillars, which is why you will see more health and wellness activities incorporated into regular meeting, lectures, and spring and fall meetings. Now more than ever, we need to support each other.

I hope CRNA Week in Pennsylvania offers you a time to reflect and celebrate the work we do.

Please share your stories with PANA and your peers, and tag #CRNAinPA on Facebook and Twitter so we can add them to our collections. While you’re at it, visit our new Instagram page, @PANACRNA, which launched this week. Tag us here, too, and show us what you’re doing.

Thank you for stepping forward to serve during this pandemic, for proving yourselves as battle-tested providers on the frontlines at home and in combat, and for fighting to ensure access to safe, cost-effective anesthesia care each and every day.

Lew Bennett, DNP, CRNA

President

Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists

Some nurses finally get the recognition they deserve | PennLive Opinion

July 28, 2021

By Matt McCoy

It used to be that certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) were the best-kept secret in health care. Not anymore.

Right before the General Assembly adjourned for its summer recess, lawmakers passed and the governor signed into law Act 60 of 2021, which grants formal title recognition to CRNAs in Pennsylvania.

The enactment marks the end of a legislative review that stretched more than a decade, and it brings tremendous professional satisfaction to the state’s 3,700 CRNAs and students, who will finally be recognized for their advanced education, specialized training, and clinical skills.

Until that moment a few weeks ago, Pennsylvania remained just one of two states (New York is now the lone holdout) that failed to formally recognize “certified registered nurse anesthetist” in some form.

Because there was no definition for nurse anesthetists under the state’s Professional Nursing Law, CRNAs were recognized only as registered nurses, despite clear differences between the two health-care professionals.

CRNAs are the hands-on providers of anesthesia care, operating safely in every setting where anesthesia is administered, including hospital operating and delivery rooms; ambulatory surgical centers; the offices of dentists, ophthalmologists, and plastic surgeons; pain management centers, and more.

Act 60 also expands the providers that CRNAs are permitted to work with to include podiatrists.

While many CRNAs practice with physician anesthesiologists, increasingly, CRNAs practice on their own in collaboration with other health-care professionals.

Act 60 also reinforces that nurse anesthetists are able to perform the full scope of anesthesia services without the involvement of physician anesthesiologists and embraces the existing patient care model of collaboration between CRNAs and their physician colleagues.

More than 49,000 CRNAs safely administer well over 34 million anesthetics nationwide each year --- and Pennsylvania remains at the forefront.

With 13 university-led programs, including York College’s WellSpan Health Nurse Anesthetist Program, our commonwealth is a national leader in anesthesia education and training. So, it has always been frustrating that our state didn’t even officially recognize these professionals.

It was costly, too. Without an official CRNA designation here, many students left. And even after they left, some graduating students had to wait as long as six months to get credentialed in out-of-state facilities, because state boards had to verify that students met requirements to be classified appropriately there.

This new law stems the flow of this “health-care brain drain” and reinforces our reputation for education and training.

Act 60 also remedies issues with credentialing that meant logistical and financial challenges for CRNAs.

Pennsylvania-based nurse anesthetists who serve in the military, for example, had to secure designation in another state to provide anesthesia in the armed services. Our CRNAs could not assist on rapid response teams in states affected by natural disasters unless they served only as RNs because they lacked formal credentials.

But it was the pandemic that finally put this decades-long professional slight into perspective.

In response to COVID-19, many CRNAs wanted to contribute more to the facilities where they worked but couldn’t. Likewise, hospitals and other health-care institutions wanted to use CRNAs to their fullest capacity but couldn’t.

And they couldn’t because of the way the state-licensed CRNAs as RNs, which limited our role to provide the most advanced, critical care services during the biggest health-care crisis of our lifetime.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the bipartisan cooperation of the administration and lawmakers, especially Rep. Tarah Toohil (R-Luzerne) and Sen. John Gordner (R-Columbia), whose measure ultimately was signed into law.

In the most ordinary situations, surgery and anesthesia can be frightening or intimidating. But nurse anesthetists provide comfort and reassurance by never leaving their patient’s side.

We’re usually the last people patients see before a procedure begins and the first to greet them when they awake. It’s humbling to realize that now they will get to know us for who we really are -- finally and officially -- as CRNAs in Pennsylvania.

Matt McCoy, DNP, CRNA, is president of the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists.

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2021/07/some-nurses-finally-get-the-recognition-they-deserve-opinion.html