Dot Com "Click!"

E-mail and the Internet are not only fun, but important in communications

Margie Darbut, CRNA

PANA Trustee

Bill Gates has given us a wonderful world of technology, whereby we now have access to discover, to investigate, to explore and to learn. Windows provides an effortless, endless opportunity for this exploration. Just point and click! Need to find a recipe, its there. How about travel destinations, its there. Need to research a medical question, just select a search engine and go. Curious about another organization’s web site? Just enter and click. EASY, EASY, EASY!

Have you recently been asked for your e-mail address? "Oh," you reply "…sorry, but I don’t have a computer" or "…sorry, I am not on-line"

If your interest in this article has you reading to this point, I thank you for staying with me. But you must be asking where are we going with all this chatter about "surfing the net" and in the Tidings of all places. I will explain it...e-mail!

During the latter weeks of March we had a legislative crisis erupting in Harrisburg. A closed committee of State Representatives was giving birth to HB 823, impacting CRNA practice in Pennsylvania. We, on the PANA board realized this information was critical and needed to be forwarded to all PANA members immediately. A crisis situation was brewing and we needed all members’ assistance to prevent this bill from leaving the committee.

What we discovered was a labor-intensive initiative to reach all PANA members quickly. We were, needless to say, successful in reaching those individuals with e-mail. But to send information by "snail mail" or by phone is time consuming and costly and may not inform members in a timely fashion. That is our problem and dilemma.

Now, the solution seems easily identifiable. We need a database of email address for all CRNAs in Pennsylvania, for the sole purpose of disseminating important legislative issues to our members. Let me reassure you that your email address listed at our PANA headquarters will never be released to anyone. It will only be utilized pending the approval of the PANA Board.

This article is not intended to offend, but rather to explain and enlighten a readily available technology in which to make our organization more efficient through the rapid transmission of information. On the personal side, it can be fun.

Thank you for your time in reading this article and please call the PANA headquarters to submit your email address. Call 1-800-495-PANA, or better yet, e-mail it to info@pana.org!