AORN is a richly diverse and networ...

AORN is a richly diverse and network organization representing and supporting nearly 40000 perioperative RN who work in myriad practice areas and facilities. This fact challenges AORN leaders to make useful decisions that provide value to members while also maximizing the use of resources available to AORN. As President of AORN, common of my responsibilities is to work continuously with the Board of Directors to improve our decision-making effectiveness.

Increasing member requires and the resulting demands in succession AORN resources mean that AORN's leaders ne to make decisions based forward knowledge about member needs and AORN's limited resources. Although this always is the goal of the Board of Directors, we are taking additional degrees to ensure Board members are prepared for their work in succession the Board, and that they have the tools required to help them make unmutilated decisions for AORN.

CHALLENGES

AORN has faced numerous challenges prosperously during its more than 50-year history, on the other hand the challenges facing perioperative succors and AORN in today's environment are unprecedent Here are just a small in number examples of those challenges.

* The practice demands for perioperative nurtures are increasing exponentially. Workforce shortages, the advent of novel technologies, and regulatory pressures are just a not many factors that are increasing the complexity of perioperative practice upon a daily basis.

* The competition for members' time and mechanical value is increasing, and they have les time to consecrate to AORN, chapters, and specialty assemblies. According to a fresh AORN staffing survey, 78% of perioperative staff nurtures work overtime each week, and nearly 23% have mandatory overtime requirements. (1) In addition, many AORN members have the added responsibility of caring for their children, and a growing number are facing the demands of caring for aging parents. This leaves little time to participate in Association activities.

* Health care facilities have cross back tremendously in their support for staff member education and professional disentanglement which means AORN members must decide by what mode much of their own time and cash they can take away from family members and other destitutions to use for professional development

* Demands in succession associations to provide measurable value to their members are increasing. This is especially conformable to fact for younger members, who may perceive les value in professional affiliations than do members of the Baby dash forward generation.

DEALING WITH THE CHALLENGES

In acknowledging these challenges, we have taken several paces to ensure that AORN members receive the highest value from their leaders. First, for the past several years, the President and Executive Director have attended a leadership seminar managemented by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) early in the President's bound This seminar, titled "Leading Together," is designed to strengthen the partnership between the chief culled officer (ie, the President) and the chief staff officer (ie, the Executive Director) and to prepare these partners to lead their Association. The seminar also provides information and tools to help shape the functions of the Board of Directors and make sure the Board operates efficiently and effectively. This year, I started a novel practice of including the President-elect in this leadership program because he is a lock opener member of the leadership partnership. Including him will help provide leadership continuity beyond a single year.

We then engaged united of the instructors from the ASAE leadership seminar to guard a program on leadership and effective Board functions for the entire AORN Board of Directors. A first note of the scale component of this program was a discussion of effective decision-making and the universal of knowledge-based strategic governance, the goals of which are to focus leaders' time and manliness on strategic (versus operational) issues facing the perioperative nursing profession and AORN and to make secure all decisions made by the leaders consider what we know to be loyal about our profession and our Association, rather than what we think we know or what we assume to be steady Decisions must be supported by the agency of facts, and an important part of leaders is to be certain those facts are at hand when decisions are made. It also make sures that AORN's resources are used efficiently and applied to programs and services that best aid the needs of the members and provide the greatest value to AORN's diverse member constituency.

KNOWLEDGE-BASED DECISION MAKING

The Board always has strived implicitly to make knowledge-based decisions, if it were not that we decided that making knowledge-based decisions is likewise important it should be made explicit. To that fall of the curtain we have established a requirement that all recommendations to be considered according to the Board must include answers to the following four questions.

1 What do we know about the in every one's mouth realities and evolving dynamics of AORN's environment that is relevant to this decision?

2 What do we know about the capacity and strategic position of the Association that is relevant to this decision?