We started to get the sense that the directors of nursing services would really benefit from having their own professional association.

A long-term nursing association will launch a new group in 2016 specifically for nursing directors.

The American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordination (AANAC) will launch the American Association of Directors of Nursing Services (AADNS) in the spring, with its first annual meeting next September.

AANAC, which was founded in 1999, was targeted at resident nurse assessment coordinators: a specific one-person role in nursing homes or long-term care facilities. However, over time the role above them—the directors of nursing services—also began joining the association.

“For several years now we’ve really tried to meet the needs of both those nursing roles with one association, but we started to get the sense that the directors of nursing services would really benefit from having their own professional association,” said Deborah White, vice president of membership and marketing. She added that AANAC will also be able to better serve the assessment coordinators by focusing on the one nursing role rather than both.

The sister organizations will be run under the same leadership, a group called the American Association of Post-Acute Care Nursing. However, there will be little if any reference to this umbrella organization.

In addition to creating a new association, AANAC will be integrating new resources from the purchase of the American Association of Long-Term Care Nursing (AALTCN), which will close in February. Current nursing director members of AANAC and AALTCN will make up the inaugural membership of the new association and will receive a six-month free trial membership before becoming full-fledged members.

While the goal is to avoid dual membership of AANAC and AADNS, there will be a discount for those who want to become members of both. The new group will also offer corporate organizational memberships, which allow corporations that own nursing homes to buy group memberships for assessment coordinators and nursing directors.

“We’re not going to cut them off from AANAC and just move them over to AADNS,” White said. “We’ll let them figure out which association is really the right fit and the right value for them, and there will be some that choose to have memberships to both.”

She noted that both associations are very specialized, but having two groups with separate memberships and benefits will allow each to better serve its members and the nursing community.

“Both of these nurses are fairly isolated in their day-to-day operations with what they’re doing,” she said, “which is why we thought … to help these people find their community and their professional home with an association.”

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