The 2024 AONL annual conference brought together nurse leaders from across the country to discuss challenges, opportunities, and trends shaping the landscape of healthcare. While AONL is largely aimed at supporting the nursing leaders of the present and future, for an organization like Prolink it presents opportunities to connect and build strong relationships in workforce solutions, marketing, clinical practice, and much more. The Prolink team jumped into action, making crucial connections and playing a role in shaping the future of healthcare face-to-face.
With the whirlwind of the conference behind them, a few Prolink team members took a moment to reflect on what they took away from their experience in New Orleans. Here’s what they had to say about another successful AONL event.
Caroline Ashman
Director of Clinical Professional Practice and Education
From the Clinical perspective, I was prepared for an amazing experience. From the amazing lineup of speakers and an opportunity to connect with thousands of nurse leaders, AONL 2024 was circled on my calendar for a long time.
I was so proud of the impressive Prolink booth positioned right at the front door. Our display and the Prolink badges everyone received to gain entry to the conference directed a lot of people our way. I was proud to deliver my elevator speech to speak to the clinical support our team provides to our talent and our clients and to explain what being a premier workforce solutions company was all about. Working alongside our incredible sales team, we were on fire—meeting and greeting existing clients, establishing new contacts, and answering all the questions I could.
The biggest highlight for me was the powerful reaction we received as everyone lined up for oven-fresh cinnamon rolls. As a nurse, I know how much nurses (even nurse leaders) love free food! And although it wasn’t planned, the cinnamon rolls provided a meaningful connection to our partnership with the DAISY Foundation. DAISY founders the Barnes family were in attendance and, before we knew it, they joined us to hand out the buns and assist with the finishing touches! It clearly meant a lot to everyone involved.
The Prolink team poses with Mark Barnes, Chairman and Cofounder of the DAISY Foundation, and some fresh cinnamon rolls.
Mary Hamilton
Vice President of Clinical Workforce Solutions
AONL 2024 was memorable in so many ways. It's always so fulfilling to econnect with colleagues and peers to talk workforce strategy and evolution. Common themes of my conversations at this year's event were empowering and retaining our nursing workforce and navigating multidisciplinary staffing models embedding allied skillsets.
A personal highlight was Social Barrier Support to Promote Workforce Equity: Aspiring Nurse Program led by Melanie Heuston, CNE and Jessica Huffman, AVP Clinical from WVU Medicine. The WVU Executive Leadership Team is clearly making an impact in their clinical workforce pipeline by breaking down barriers for those who seek to become a Registered Nurse. They are focused not only on enrollment to local universities but the success rate of those students. The WVU program specifically addressed barriers for their local and state communities and focused on solutioning through the launch of their own Aspiring Nurse Program. Behind those two amazing leaders was a dynamic group of HR and clinical leaders working together seamlessly. Great work, WVU!
Kyle Zimmerman
Workforce Solutions Sales Executive
AONL is my favorite conference of the year. This week always leaves the internal battery feeling 100% charged. The best part is getting to reconnect with current colleagues and friends, and the second best part is making new ones. My biggest takeaway this year is that the workforce challenges around attracting, retaining, and developing top clinical talent are faced by all health systems. And as a cherry on top, the booth looked incredible, and it was an honor to have our logo on every badge and lanyard.
Prolink's Happy Hour at the World War II Museum drew AONL attendees to one of New Orleans's biggest attractions.
Rachel Schmitz
Director of Marketing
AONL is one of those conferences that our team looks forward to every year. We know it will be jam packed with smiling faces and embraces from those we met in years past. From a marketing perspective, we are very rarely client facing, although a large majority of our work is focused on bringing our solutions and brand to life to increase client partnerships. Getting the opportunity to see our clients as well as educators, CNOs, directors, and managers from facilities/colleges across the country is very special to us. This year our Events Manager, Linda Burgin, our Marketing Specialist, Julia Lynch, and several other team members behind the scenes helped us show up in a unique way with booth and literature upgrades, fun giveaways, delicious food, and a happy hour at the World War II Museum, one of New Orleans’s main attractions.
We put this much effort and thought into every detail because nurses deserve to experience comfort and for things to feel easy for once. This year was extra exciting, because we were joined in the booth by our colleagues from Visa Solutions, who focus on giving international clinicians life-changing opportunities by connecting them with facilities in the United States. Each day of the show we partnered with them and our Workforce Solutions and Clinical teams to provide knowledge and care to anyone seeking conversation. Overall, we couldn’t have asked for a better conference—the AONL community knows how to put on an event, and we are so grateful to have been a part of it.
