Margaret Leonard
Tarrytown, NY… Margaret Leonard, MS, RN-BC, FNP, Senior Vice President of Clinical Services at Hudson Health Plan, has been appointed to a five-year term on the New York State Board of Nursing, which oversees Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners and Licensed Practical Nurses, with the charge to advise and assist the Board of Regents and the State Education Department on matters of professional regulation.
"It's wonderful to have a seat at the table where some of the most important health care issues facing our state and nation are being discussed and addressed,” explains Ms. Leonard. “Our health care delivery system is changing dramatically, creating new opportunities for nursing. As a member of the New York State Board of Nursing, I believe I can help strengthen the role of nursing in the new delivery models that are taking shape under reform, and this will benefit everyone.”
Ms. Leonard plans to address the critical issue of nursing education, including the state’s acute shortage of qualified nursing faculty.
“In most cases, bedside nurses make more money than teachers, so there is little incentive for nurses to teach,” she explains. “We need to explore imaginative ways to attract nurses to teaching, such as offering scholarship money and loan forgiveness programs.”
As a member of the Board, which oversees professional nursing regulation, Ms. Leonard also would help implement a proposed law, now before the New York State legislature, mandating that new nurses obtain their bachelor’s degrees in nursing within ten years — something Ms. Leonard championed as Chair of the New York State Nurses Association Legislative Council. “I have always felt strongly that all registered nurses minimally should be prepared at the baccalaureate level,” she says. Ms. Leonard is a graduate of an Associate Degree Program at Nassau Community College. She explains that even though an associate program teaches basic nursing skills, “a nurse, to be truly effective, needs such skills as critical thinking, resource management and community health, which are imparted in a baccalaureate program.
She adds that nurses with baccalaureate degrees are needed to meet a growing demand for nurse case managers, who speed patient recovery and manage chronic conditions by coordinating care and serving as patient and patient care givers’ advocates. Their decisions also reduce wasteful health care spending. “As the role of the nurse case manager expands, the public will be seeking nursing help and advice more than ever,” she says. Ms. Leonard’s own case management initiatives at Hudson Health Plan have contributed to Hudson’s top ranking in the 2009 Quality Incentive Program, the annual grading of Medicaid Managed Care plans by the New York State Department of Health.
No stranger to service in her profession, Ms. Leonard is the immediate past president of the Case Management Society of America; past Chair of the American Nurses Credentialing Center Nurse Case Management Expert Panel; Chair of the Case Management Society of America (CMSA) Public Policy Committee; past Chair of New York State Nurses Association Legislative Council, and a past member of NYSNA Political Action Committee Board of Trustees. Presently, she is a member of the National Quality Forum (NQF) Quality and Measures Council; and has been appointed to the NQF Steering Committee on Care Coordination. She is actively involved in the work of several national and regional coalitions such as the National Transitions of Care Coalition (NTOCC), and is a member of its Public Policy Task Force; Center for Medicare and Medicaid Technical Expert Panel on Hospital Readmissions within 30 Days, and CARF International Accreditation BOD. With the Medical Director of the New York State Department of Health's Office of Managed Care, Ms. Leonard co-chaired the statewide Case Management Work Group.
In addition, she is an adjunct instructor at the College of New Rochelle, School of Nursing, where she teaches the politics of health care. She received her master’s degree and her post-master’
