Nursing & Healthcare News
ANA President Speaks Out on Advocacy and AI
Highlights from Mensik Kennedy's keynote address at the ACNL conference
At the 2026 ACNL annual conference in February, ANA President Jennifer Mensik Kennedy challenged nurses to claim their power in political advocacy, leadership, and shaping the rapidly evolving role of AI.
Influence in Action
TIME recently announced that Jennifer S. Mensik Kennedy, RN, Ph.D., NEA-BC, FAAN, has been named to the 2026 TIME100 Health list of the world’s most influential health leaders, the latest recognition for the president of the American Nurses Association. In addition to that role, Mensik Kennedy is an educator, a prolific author and speaker, and, as she noted with pride, the mother of six.
On February 9, Mensik Kennedy delivered the 90-minute keynote at the Association of California Nurse Leaders annual conference in Rancho Mirage, a speech that touched on nursing leadership, ethics, workplace violence, activism, and the present and future role of AI in healthcare.
Politics Shapes Practice
“You don’t pick the time, the time picks you,” Mensik Kennedy told the audience, and then launched into a story of successful nurse advocacy.
Last year, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” (P.L. 119–21) threatened to cut $330 million in Title 8 funding — a move that would have devastated nursing faculty, education, and diversity programs. In response, ANA partnered with lawmakers to push back, and the funding was ultimately restored.
She challenged the notion of some nurses that they are “not political,” reminding the audience that it’s legislation that determines nurse-patient ratios, meal and rest breaks, license portability, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, and much more.
Nurses are involved in politics, whether or not they think they are (or want to be).
She offered an overview of what the ANA is doing to advance its legislative goals, including working directly with Congress and with the 50-member bipartisan Congressional Nursing Caucus. ANA also sponsors an annual Hill Day in Washington, D.C. — scheduled for June 25 this year — and encourages nurses to run for office and serve on boards.
Advocacy, she emphasized, is ongoing work: Winning the war is not the same as winning the peace. And, while all nurses are leaders, those who are truly exceptional take their seats at the table while making sure to leave room for others.
The AI Reckoning
One of the most riveting, and unsettling, portions of Mensik Kennedy’s keynote focused on artificial intelligence.
“Within the next five years, AI will do 95 percent of healthcare diagnostics in this country,” AI companies have told Mensik Kennedy. She believes some tech companies are attempting to bypass traditional healthcare systems in order to market directly to consumers.
There has been some legislative pushback: For example, California and Oregon have now passed title protection laws that prohibit a health chatbot from calling itself an M.D. or an RN. (However, the term “nurse” was considered too general to protect in this way.)
Mensik Kennedy drew a strong reaction from the audience with a particularly surreal scenario: An AI company approached a state board of nursing to ask whether its AI health agent could take the NCLEX and become licensed as a registered nurse! In closing, she reminded attendees, “If we want a better system, we are the answer.”
To learn more about ANA advocacy, visit RNAction.com. For more information on other ANA initiatives, like the Next Gen new graduate support program and Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation, a free wellness program for nurses, please visit nursingworld.org.
In this Article: ACNL, ANA, Legislation and Public Policy
