ARN Mission Statement
The Association of Rehabilitation nurses promotes and advances professional rehabilitation, nursing practice through education, advocacy, collaboration and research to enhance the quality of life for those affected by disability and chronic illness.
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Rehabilitation Nurses Plan "Capitol Hill Day"
As rehabilitation nurses, we are advocates for our clients and families who have sustained a disability. The GPC (Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses) recently restructured our chapter goals to mirror the Strategic Plan of ARN. One of the primary goals is Health Policy and our chapter established a Health Policy Committee which provides an annual fall seminar to our members focusing on legislative and advocacy for persons with a disability. This past Fall, our chapter hosted an afternoon at Villanova Conference Center in Radnor to prepare our members for a Capitol Hill visit to Washington, DC in the Spring of 2012. The Hill visit will be coordinated on Brain Injury Awareness Day and include a rehabilitation nursing display booth, meetings with key legislators active in brain injury rehabilitation policy and a briefing by the brain injury community. ARN's Government Relations Director, Jeremy Scott, MA from Drinker, Biddle and Reath LLP was our seminar leader. It will be critical in both the appropriations component of the current legislation to properly fund TBI (traumatic brain injury) services, but equally important is for ongoing rehabilitation services to be included in the new Affordable Care Act. Currently, funding decreases are being considered in light of our country's economic challenges; however, the need for quality and cost effective brain injury services from acute care through life care are essential for the clients who have sustained a brain injury, as well as their families. The seminar identified the governmental entities our chapter will need to address, in order to be effective when we attend the Hill Day for TBI; and the various legislators, committees, caucuses, agencies, task forces, advisory boards, coalitions and associations with similar objectives we may want to partner with, to achieve a quality of life for those with a brain injury.
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