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Association is resource for entrepreneurial nurses and Web success story

BY KATHY HAGOOD

Patricia Ann Bemis, president of the National Nurses in Business Association Inc., a for profit Rockledge-based company, attributes much of the radiant health of her business to her use of Web-based training and other on-line services.

While some members of Bemis’ generation have resisted changing technologies, Bemis has not only embraced them, but has used them to catapult herself to greater success.

“We’re not using cutting-edge Web technologies, just those that have entered the mainstream. We don’t want to overwhelm or turn off our members. Instead our goal is to make our products as convenient to access as possible,” Bemis said.
Her association provides a variety of business education resources for more than 4,000 nurses nationwide who are self-employed or want to become self-employed. Entrepreneurial nurses often are able to boost their typical salary of about $40,000 a year to a range of $125,000 to $175,000 a year by becoming self-employed, Bemis said.

Most association members are 40 years old or older and see self-employment as a chance for a new start and a second career.
Bemis describes the variety of nurses who are association members:

? “nurses who provide patient care, e.g., independent contractor, nursing agency, home health, private duty, holistic, nurse practitioner, esthetic nurses;

? nurses who teach, e.g. education, seminars, speaking, writing, CPR, ACLS, training program management, business-to-business and person-to-person;

? nurses who design, manufacture, or sell a product;

? nurses who review, analyze, and plan patient care, e.g., legal nurse consulting, life care planning, case management, elder care, forensic nursing.”

The association Web site, a simple-yet-effective site Bemis created herself, is a treasure trove of information about association conferences, instructional books and CDs, and more. Instructional materials can be ordered on-line.
This year Bemis didn’t mail out course catalogues but posted the association catalogue on line.

“It’s just become too expensive to print and mail them out and it’s convenient for people to be able to access the catalogue from their computer,” she said. “Of course we did print out some catalogues and will send them out to association members at their request.”

In addition, Bemis has modules from her “Emergency Nursing Bible” posted on Wild Iris, a national on-line continuing education and certification resource for nurses (www.nursingceu.com).

“The lessons are text-based. Wild Iris doesn’t use a lot of fancy graphics, it just gives nurses the basic information they need,” Bemis said.

Bemis, RN, CEN, had a long career as an emergency room nurse before becoming one of the Web’s success stories. But the computer attracted her attention from its introduction.

She was first introduced to a computer workstation and mainframe at a hospital in the 1980s. She had begun her nursing career two decades earlier in 1959 following her education in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, Calif.

“Later I purchased the first model of the IBM PC,” said Bemis.
She learned to work on her computer hardware to replace components as technology was upgraded.

As applications were created for the first clunky personal computers Bemis took them on. Over the years she used the computer for personal needs and to create newsletters and other communication aids.

She now uses computer programs to record her instructional CDs, communicate over the Internet via Web cam, and keep on top of her business.
“ I’ve always enjoyed making use of technology as it’s become available,” she said.

In 1996 Bemis and her husband, Warren, a photographer who was raised in Cocoa, moved to Rockledge. She worked at several hospitals in the area, including Holmes Regional Medical Center.

Along the way Bemis was inspired to author “The Emergency Nursing Bible” and decided to make her first entrepreneurial efforts in 1998 by joining the association.

“I knew a lot about nursing but I had no idea about business. I knew I needed to educate myself,” she said.

Her membership and mentoring by Laura Gasparis Vanfrolio, then the association president, helped Bemis create a successful private venture.

When Vanfrolio decided to let go of her leadership role to adopt children, Bemis stepped up in 2000 to take over the association. Vanfrolio worked with Bemis, taking her to association conferences and sharing the ins and outs of the association, to insure a smooth transition.

After Bemis took over the association she decided to take it to the next level by expanding Web access and programming. The membership responded positively.
Bemis now plans to expand the association’s on-line presence to include on-line directories, bulletin boards, chat groups and on-line newsletters.

“Computers and the Web are important tools. The have opened whole new worlds of information to us,” she said.

For more information about her association, visit www.nnba.net