The WOCN® Society’s Regions and Affiliates meet in person and virtually throughout the year to share their healthcare expertise, concerns, and professional issues to meet the needs of a local group. Below are 2022 updates from select Regions and Affiliates about exciting highlights and accomplishments and upcoming events!
MID-ATLANTIC REGION
Mid-Atlantic Region
Our in-person conference will be held from September 15-17, 2022, at the Hyatt Regency in Dulles, VA.
We successfully held our first virtual conference this past year. We had one recipient of our Regional Scholarship. We were proud that several members of our Region presented sessions and posters at WOCNext® 2022 this past June. Our Region and Affiliates have continued to meet with a mix of virtual and in-person meetings during these challenging times and have continued to support our communities with educational opportunities both virtually and in-person. Information about opportunities and activities in our Region can be found at marwocn.org.
Baltimore Affiliate
We have continued to meet virtually for the majority of our meetings. Topics included recruiting WOC nurses locally and providing education. We had a terrific speaker Zoom in from the Friends of Ostomates Worldwide, who we continue to support. We joined a walk to celebrate Ostomy Awareness Day with the Greater Baltimore Ostomy Association. The Community Resource List for Ostomy Care was updated for our website. We met in person for our annual WOC Week dinner celebration. We hope to meet again for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference in September. Visit our website at marwocn.org/affiliates/baltimore/index.html for additional information.
Central Virginia Affiliate
We will be having an in-person conference from October 5-7, 2023. The location is still in process. It will most likely be at the Marriott in Richmond, VA.
Our Affiliate hosted a community outreach for any nurse/CNA/others who wanted to learn. We planned a program with a packaged dinner. We had 16 vendors and demonstrations. The title was “Defying Gravity: Venous Leg Ulcers”. We had 31 community individuals (RNs, CNA, PTs) attend and 22 members participated. This had originally been planned for March 2020. We have been doing community outreach once a year since 2016. Additional work our Affiliate has been involved with: we’ve donated $500 to Youth Rally and $500 to Friends of Ostomates Worldwide-USA.
MIDEAST REGION
Mideast Region
The Mideast Region Conference will be held in person from September 22-24, 2022, in Lexington, KY!
The Mideast Region (Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia) is focusing on our strategic plan, “To Share our Passion to Elevate Your Profession!” for our Fall Conference. Speakers will include our own enthusiastic leaders from the past and present. Topics will include professionalism, mentoring, legal, quality concerns, marginalized patients, coding, and documentation along with wound, ostomy, and continence topics. See our website for more details at mideastregion.org. Please join us in person for one day or all three days! We will announce our WOC awards, scholarship winners, and new board members, and will also provide opportunities to network with our supportive vendors and nurses.
MIDWEST REGION
Central Illinois Affiliate
What a year! The Central Illinois Affiliate team has met virtually and once in person. During our virtual meeting, we raffled off a free registration for WOCNext® 2022. After WOCNext® 2022, we gathered to reconnect and share stories from the conference. Members were engaged and curious! We welcomed new members and virtually embraced returning members. We have two more in person meetings planned before the year ends. Our last scholarship was awarded in 2021. Our current scholarship window is open until November 2022. This year we also made a generous donation to the Youth Rally.
Nebraska Affiliate
The Nebraska Affiliate has an active group of members engaged in various roles and activities throughout the state. The Affiliate has also been preparing a website and will start developing the site in the very near future. We’ve had other engaging activities such as an ostomy nurse podcast series on RN Huddle, Journal club meetings, supply consolidations for donations, and other activities to improve patient care and WOC nurse networking. We will host our annual NE Affiliate Conference in April 2023.
Northern Illinois Affiliate
Our conference, the 24th Annual Professional Ed Day “Growing Together” In-person event, will take place on Tuesday, October 18, 2022, from 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM. Topics will include Lymphedema, Orthotics, Incontinence Case Studies, and others to be announced. There will be 5 CEUs awarded.
We had a successful in-person conference in the spring on May 3, 2022, in Woodridge, IL, titled “Community Ed Day ‘Rock’in Skin Care’”. Topics included Covid Skin Manifestation, Braden: A Risk Assessment Tool, Venous Leg Ulcers: Challenges and Solutions, IAD: Identification, Prevention, & Management, and Understanding the Basics of Ostomy Care. Community Ed Day is an outreach to the community of generalist RN’s that want to learn more about wound, ostomy, and continence care. Most of the presentations were provided by the NIA WOCN membership.
We will also hold a membership meeting with education provided by Convatec on Optimizing Clinical Outcomes in Hard to Heal Wounds. Visit our website at niawocn.org.
St. Louis Affiliate
On October 1, 2022, we will be teaming up with our local United Ostomy Association of America (UOAA) Chapter and will have a free ostomy clinic for the St. Louis community. This will be held at SSM DePaul Hospital in St. Louis.
Our conference, Learning in the LU, will be held in person on October 6, 2022, in Webster Grove MI. We are currently working on our website.
NEW ENGLAND REGION
The New England Region continues to remain solvent and viable. Last fall we were resilient and reinvented ourselves as WOC Nurses as we were emerging from COVID. This year, we have changed our venue for our in-person Fall Conference to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, which will take place from October 21-22, 2022. The conference is going to focus on how we can remain relevant in an ever-changing healthcare environment.
We are building our committees, providing scholarships, updating our policy and procedure manual, and continuing to engage our membership through our website. Each Region relies on all the members to continue moving forward. Check our website newenglandwocn.org frequently for updates and reach out to the Board with suggestions and questions.
NORTHEAST REGION
Northeast Region
The Northeast Region Conference will take place from December 2-4, 2022, at the Kalahari Resort in Poconos, PA. Join us for the first in-person Northeast Regional Conference since 2019. Click here to learn more. The NER is also offering 6 free WOC student conference registrations and 6 scholarships. Additional information can be found here.
Capitol District-NY Affiliate
We are a small Affiliate in Upstate NY. We meet monthly with time off during the summer months and over the winter holidays. Prior to the pandemic, our Affiliate held an annual education day for local healthcare professionals. We’re hoping at some point to resume our yearly conferences. In the spring, several members of our Affiliate participated in a fundraiser walk for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Visit our Facebook page for additional updates.
Central NY Affiliate
We are assisting with the NER 2022 conference. We were the primary team for our Fall 2021 Regional conference, which was held virtually. Our meetings have been held mostly via Zoom. Our most recent meeting was held in person and was sponsored by Coloplast. Our group grew with a new member–Jameson Alexander was born on June 3 to our Affiliate Secretary Emma Kovacs, husband Ryan, and big sister Everly Grace. Email wnywocn@gmail.com for questions regarding our Affiliate.
Greater Delaware Valley Affiliate
The Greater Delaware Valley Affiliate is holding meetings both in-person and virtually this year. Members are excited to be meeting face-to-face again. We have provided financial support to the Youth Rally and the UOAA through donations from the Affiliate. We will be attending the NER 2022 Conference.
Garden State Affiliate
Quarterly Meetings are being held via Zoom for 2022, with a plan to attempt in-person meetings at the end of 2023. Recruitment for NER assistance for the regional symposium was advertised via email and at the most recent 2022 meeting. We allow vendors to do product presentations for the first 45 minutes after the business meeting is conducted. Topics covered in education at the meetings include: positioners and offloading, pressure injuries and proning, how to manage the stress of COVID and how it’s impacting staff (therefore impacting pressure injury rates).
To add the element of networking back into the group and an opportunity for education and new product information until we can get back to in-person meetings, we will be adding two vendor-sponsored dinner invites, separate from regular meetings, to our schedule.
Officer Elections will take place at the end of 2022 for Garden State Affiliate Secretary and Treasurer (2 years) and President-Elect (1 year for this currently vacant position).
Greater Leigh Valley Affiliate
Meetings were placed on hold during the COVID lockdown. Our first meeting as the restrictions were lifted was in April 2021. We had 4 meetings last year, and 2 meetings this year. The Day of Education was held in March 2022. There are 3 additional meetings planned, typically on the third Thursday of each month. During months with a Regional or National Conference, there are normally no Affiliate meetings scheduled. Meetings are hosted by GLVWOCN members and sponsored by vendors. The vendor and speaker presentations enhance our knowledge of a selected topic and/or make the members aware of new products. The presentation is followed by an Affiliate membership meeting.
Western PA Affiliate
We were able to meet in person over the past year while providing a Zoom option. We had an in-person Vendor Fair with 15 vendors and about 40 members. We gave out 1 scholarship this past year for a WOC nurse student who recently finished their WOC nurse schooling. We recently had a meeting with guest speaker Dot Weir.
NORTHWEST REGION
Northwest Region
Our in-person conference will be held from October 28-29, 2022, in Hood River, OR. This year, we have a new President being inducted at the Regional Conference. We continue to look for volunteers for annual conferences and board positions. Visit our website nwregionwocn.org for additional information.
PACIFIC COAST REGION
Pacific Coast Region
Our 2022 conference was held in April.
PCR will refrain from holding a separate annual regional educational conference in 2023, and instead will participate in WOCNext® 2023. The event will be held from June 4-7, 2023, in Las Vegas, NV.
We had new Board officers in 2021 and 2022. PCR WOC Scholarship x3; Best Nurse Award x2; Lifetime Achievement Award x1; Best Vendor Award x1. Works in progress: website updates with plans to include an educational library, networking events, and volunteer opportunities. We are also working on Board restructuring.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION
Tucson Affiliate
We increased membership from 44 to 53 as of 6/2022. We established a SharePoint account to store information minutes, finances, etc. We are active with San Jose Women’s Shelter for foot care. 2 Board Members are participating in the RMR Conference Planning Committee. The RMR in-person conference is scheduled for September 2022. We are active with the Tucson Chapter of the UOAA. Members are attending their monthly meetings for support and information. We are active with Diaper Bank of SW Arizona. Our website is currently not active as it is being redesigned to be more user-friendly.
NORTH CENTRAL REGION
North Central Region
The North Central Region held its annual 2021 conference from September 17-18 in Bloomington, MN. This was an in-person conference and attendees learned about COVID-19 skin manifestations, peristomal wounds, and participated in a debridement workshop.
The 2022 conference will be held October 15-16, 2022, in Eau Claire, WI.
The North Central Region was able to make charitable donations to the UOAA and Friends of Ostomates. No scholarships were awarded due to a lack of applicants. Membership has stayed steady and many of the members of the North Central Region attended the National Conference either in person or virtually.
SOUTH CENTRAL REGION
South Central Region
The in-person conference will be held from September 24-25, 2022, in New Orleans, LA.
Over the last year, we provided monetary and emotional support for ostomy support organizations. We have increased our presence on social media to over 225 members via an individual Facebook group. We provided 2 Beverly G. Hampton Scholarships and 1 Advanced Practice Scholarship. We presented 14 accepted poster abstracts and 4 podium presentations at WOCNext® 2022. We engaged the membership through virtual meetings, contests, and prize giveaways. We participated in the Region and Affiliate Summit and Task Force. We would like to recognize the following award winners:
- Cindy Barfield: UOAA WOC Nurse of the Year
- Katherine Wallender: Barbara Braden the Future is Bright Award
- Kelly Bryant and Carol Marshall-Hanson: WOCNext® 2022 Case Study Poster Merit Award
Visit our Conference website.
SOUTHEAST REGION
Southeast Region
Our in-person conference, “Write Your Own Story in Sweet Home Alabama”, will be held from September 22-24, 2022, at Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Center, in Birmingham, AL.
We are excited to have our wonderful colleagues join us in Birmingham. The planning committee is finalizing an outstanding lineup. We are kicking off with “Lymphedema Management” for the pre-conference and then “Story Telling & Healing” for the keynote address. We will end our conference with a national presentation on “New ICD -10 CMS codes for MASD” that you do not want to miss! The Sheraton Hotel has superb accommodations for us with a crosswalk to the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Center.
The 2023 conference will be held from August 24-26, in person at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem, NC.
Visit www.serwocn.org for additional information.