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Good day, my informatics colleagues. I hope the world of nursing informatics is serving you well.

I wanted to reach out to you all and extend my appreciation for your steadfast membership, passion for informatics and devotion to the future of our profession. Here in Florida, we have the unique opportunity of the sharing of ideas and best practice, current research activity and professional networking given that we span an entire state. We have many avenues in which these things are facilitated: alignment with ANIA national, ANIA - Florida committees and participation on those committees, our very successful quarterly meetings, hosted by our members at organizations across the state (thank you!), and finally, communication through our local website, email and social media. Your Board members work very hard to organize and carry out these goals throughout the year (a big thanks to them as well!).

Alignment with ANIA national: This year, we are working to further align our focus with ANIA national. We are completing this by meeting with our Director on a quarterly basis and passing along that information to you, more often and with more value. We will continue to do this through a quarterly newsletter and are most appreciative of your feedback at any time. 

Sharing of ideas, best practice and research: It is my personal opinion that this is the greatest value of membership to ANIA-Florida. We are all involved in this ever-evolving profession, and to have a group of colleagues with which to share ideas and work efforts is invaluable. Whether you practice informatics within the long-term care setting, acute care, physician office, software vendor, population health, academia, or so many others--our sharing of ideas will set the stage for those that follow in our path. We can only get better if we strive for the best and share that success (or failure). We will continue to encourage the sharing of ideas at our quarterly meetings by consistently seeking a call for best practice and placing time on the agenda for presentation. Additionally, the Board is looking to engage national experts to speak at our quarterly meetings and impart their thoughts on our future and the future of healthcare informatics.

Active participation: I encourage you to attend the upcoming meeting in Orlando on Friday, September 9th where your colleagues from Adventist Health Information Services will be sharing best practice on how to utilize One Note to support Informatics; as well as tour a smart room, the wave of our future. This is sure to be one of the most exciting presentations ever and one of which to be a part. My request to you is to think about what you can share with your colleagues...a best practice or research focus that would be of interest to them and work towards the greater good of informatics in the state of Florida. If you feel you have something to offer (and I'll bet you do!) please forward to aniaflorida@gmail.com. Your board members will ensure this is incorporated into one of our sharing forums.

Call to Action for Committees: In this era of population health and health information exchange, it is our duty to get out of the old silos of a certain clinical documentation system vendor or EMR and serve our patients as they are cared for across the continuum by sharing our craft with each other. There are other opportunities to be involved. Your ANIA-Florida region has committee work that could use an injection of new, inspired and enthusiastic nurse informatics professionals. The education, technology, regulation/advocacy and nomination committees are all looking for new leaders and team members to lift up the energy and take the work of the committees to places they have never seen. New and fresh ideas for networking and sharing wanted! Our profession has never been so popular and on the rise. An exorbitantly rich number of nurses are currently enrolled in MSN - INFORMATICS programs across the state. Now is truly a time in which we can make a difference in our patients’ outcomes by expanding the brain trust of informatics across the state of Florida through our organization. 

Communication: One critical component in successfully accomplishing the above is good communication. Please make it a point to become an informed professional through ANIA-Florida by frequenting the national website, the Florida website, reading emails and the upcoming newsletter and perusing ANIA-Florida social media. Again, your feedback is very much appreciated in regards to making any of these paths to communication and information more valuable.

Closing: I would like to encourage you to contemplate joining us for the next planned quarterly meetings where our networking and education will be informative and valuable to your practice as a nurse informatics professional.

• Friday, September 9^th- Adventist Health Information Services, Altamonte Springs FL
• Friday, December 16^th- Broward Health, Fort Lauderdale FL

Additionally, don't forget to keep an eye out for the launch of our quarterly newsletter. The newsletter will focus on national informatics news along with "Florida happenings". Perhaps a call for ideas on a newsletter title is in order?  Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the privilege of working with all of you in this illustrious, heartfelt profession and leading this very valuable organization over the next few months. Please do not ever hesitate to reach out to me personally with questions or comments. This is welcomed and encouraged.