August Director's Notes: Only Two Ways to Create Change: Action & Voice

August Director's Notes
Only Two Ways to Create Change: Action and Voice

By: Terri Schmitt, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP

This month, as a sometimes tired practicing clinician, I’ve been considering how we as advanced practice providers create real change. As we age, work long days, and continue to move through an increasingly complex and demanding healthcare world, it becomes easy to feel like we’ve lost our ability to make a meaningful impact is slipping away - or that we've lost our voice. In pondering how I can help impact change and how a single person can influence larger systems and communities beyond the one patient, one meeting at a time model?

The answer is simple: Action and voice.

Action Requires Energy and Commitment

Action, simply defined, is how we get involved. Action requires time, energy, and sometimes sacrifice. But with action comes the ability to directly shape outcomes. Taking action means showing up: Serving on committees, writing workplace protocols, sitting on boards, advocating, meeting people, collecting sound data, and looking at all sides of a problem.

At NPACE, we believe in the power of action to drive professional development. If you are action oriented and desire to make impact, join us and volunteer or serve on the Board of Directors or the ANCC Planning Committee, email us at npace@npace.org. Or even better, identify your own unique healthcare passion and take the first step toward action today by finding out how to get involved with organizations in that area.

Voice Is Influence—Use It Wisely

Voice is equally powerful. Voice is not about venting in comment sections (though businesses may scan those), it’s instead about purposefully participating when opportunities arise. Voice means filling out surveys, voting in elections, attending town halls or HOA meetings, and completing feedback forms.

As the leader of a 45-year-long nonprofit, I can tell you we at NPACE take every feedback survey seriously. We analyze quantitative data, look at long-term trends, and break down responses across attendee types—new, retired, military, first-time attendees, and more. If we as a small organization do this, I guarantee other organizations do as well. Surveys matter. They are the only way to know what participants think.

How Your Voice Shaped NPACE

Here are just a few examples of how APP feedback shaped NPACE programs this year:

- Concern: Conferences are too long—majority of responders showed preference for 3 days maximum for in-person events.
Response: Our first two 2025 in-person conferences and three 2026 events are now 3 days.

- Concern: APPs want more content on lab interpretation and complex lab ordering.
Response: We created Lab Fest 2025, a virtual event dedicated to complex lab interpretation. [Learn more here.]

- Concern: Only 60% of APPs receive any employer support for CE/CME
Response: We’re continuing Faculty Scholarships at each live event and adding Student Seats. [Learn more here.]

- Concern: In-person events are preferred, but barriers include time, life, and budgetary constraints.
Response: NPACE expanded virtual and on-demand offerings to meet state and certification specific licensure and DEA MATE Act requirements. Our offerings are unique and not just general pharmacology credits. At NPACE you can find everything from psychiatric mental health precision pharmacology to NP New faculty development.

These are just a few of the ways your voice matters.

Take 2 Minutes to Influence the Future

Now, is the time to again have impact on NPACE work and the professional development of all APPs. Please take only 2 minutes to complete our Annual Needs Assessment – this year dubbed “Help NPACE Advance your Practice! 2025 Survey”. This short survey directly influences the professional development resources available to you and your peers.

As a thank-you, we’ll randomly select 4 respondents to receive free seats to any 2026 live event, but time will run out. This survey will only run through September 2025.

👉 Click here to take the survey.

Let’s shape the future together.
Because real change happens through action and voice.