Happy Spring, everyone!

Many of you attended our recent (March 2) educational program hosted by Durham Regional Hospital and Cindy Boyd, RN, BSN, CRRN. We had more than 50 who joined us for a fun and informative time in which we covered topics related to Patient Safety; Medicare RAC Audits; Bedside reporting in Rehab; Certification for Rehab Nurses; and Patient-Family Centered Care. Thanks to each of our presenters for a very educational day. The networking and food were great, too!

The Education Committee will be offering another program in July (date and location still to be determined). Additionally, we will sponsor another CRRN Review Two Day Course on September 20 & 21; it will be held at WakeMed and we will be sending out more information over the summer. We are having the same instructor who has given the course for our Chapter twice before-once in Greenville and once in Winston-Salem; the pass rate for her courses is very high!

Additionally, the bi-annual Southeast Regional ARN Conference will be held in Greenville, South Carolina on April 25-27. I am attaching an electronic copy of the brochure to this email for those of you who may not have already seen it. The Conference is entitled “2012…A new beginning in rehab”. The price is very reasonable considering the value you will receive and compared to other regional/national conferences. Hope to see many of you there!

We will soon (before July) be voting on new officers/ board members for the coming year; now is the time to start thinking about nominations. Stay tuned for the call for new officers .We have been so fortunate to have so many dedicated and active members on our committees; we encourage many of you to volunteer to be part of the Education and Board Committees; you’ll find the experience rewarding, and make some great new friends in the process. Kathie Fisher, RN, CRRN will become the new President in July. Several new volunteers joined the Education Committee at the March seminar.

Our winter has been relatively mild; however, I imagine that many of you are like me, excited that spring is finally almost fully here! The flowers and trees are so beautiful! I hope you are enjoying the extra hours of daylight and being out in the fresh, crisp air. I hope, too, that you will take advantage of the opportunities for education, networking, and development opportunities offered by GNCCARN.

Congratulations, too, to all our Certified Nurses; take time to congratulate them on March 19, National Certification Day!

Sincerely, Ann Bene’, RN,BSN,MBA, NE-BC