Region Director Candidate
Campaign Message
As nurse practitioners, we are leaders in delivering compassionate, evidence-based care to our communities. As your candidate for Regional Director of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, I am committed to serving as your voice, advocate, and partner in advancing our profession. My vision focuses on three priorities: Advocacy: Advancing policies that protect and expand the 50-year role of NPs in healthcare delivery. Collaboration: Strengthening connections across our region to share knowledge, mentorship, and support. Growth: Promoting professional development and leadership opportunities that empower NPs to thrive. Together, we can elevate our impact and ensure nurse practitioners are recognized as essential leaders in health care. I would be honored to earn your support as we continue building the next 50 years for our patients, our profession, and our communities. Stronger together. Stronger for Patients.
Bio Sketch
Dr. Alicia Le Pard, PhD, MBA, APRN, ACNP-BC, ENP-C, FNP-BC, GNP-BC, FAANP, is an accomplished nurse practitioner, educator, and healthcare leader with over three decades of clinical and academic experience. She earned her PhD in Nursing from the University of Colorado, where her dissertation focused on atypical insulin resistance and nontraditional glycemia. Dr. Le Pard is the owner of High Desert Healthcare in Gillette, Wyoming, a full-service primary care clinic specializing in chronic disease management, particularly diabetes care. She has extensive experience in emergency and hospitalist medicine across Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota, and continues to serve rural and underserved populations with dedication and passion to her vocation. Dr. Le Pard teaches advanced practice nursing, has published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Adolescent Health, and engages as a speaker on topics ranging from rural emergency care to innovative diabetes management. Her leadership includes serving seven years a Board Member and President of the Wyoming Council of Advanced Practice Nurses, 15 years on the Board of Directors for the Wyoming Nurses Association, and nearly 20 years serving in the National Disaster Medical System as a Disaster Medical Assistance Team Medical Officer as a Nurse Practitioner.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing NPs in the delivery of health care over the next decade? How should AANP address this issue to support NPs and the populations they serve?
Nurse Practitioners are challenged to provide the delivery of healthcare often in areas of low resources such as rural, low income areas amid unequal state laws, often restricting the right to assess, diagnose and treat within their full scope of practice. The impetus of collegial, robust, safe delivery of care continues to lie in the education of not only the general public but also our healthcare colleagues of our professional responsibility as a knowledgeable, competent member of the team that does not aim to replace physicians, but care for people who choose to use nurse practitioners.
Describe, in detail, leadership and other professional skills that you will bring to AANP and provide at least one initiative or outcome that occurred because of these skills.
I bring extensive knowledge of Region 8 practice needs and requirements. I have also served as a board member in various positions for the Wyoming Nurses Association for over 15 years, as a Member At Large, President and Immediate Past President for the Wyoming Council for Advanced Practice Nurses. In these positions I have been able to bring forward and pass legislative initiates culminating in global signature authority in Wyoming for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants to enhance their full practice authority.
Identify one major challenge that could impact your ability to fulfill the responsibilities of the position you are seeking. How do you plan to manage this challenge to be successful?
A major challenge in this position is the sheer vastness associated within Region 8 and access to the remote pockets of Nurse Practitioners and NPOs in order to advocate the mission, vision and values of AANP, to promote further discourse in the collaboration of healthcare for our residents. With AANPs resources, constant communication must be a priority to promote the vision, mission and values of AANP.
AANP’s mission is to empower all NPs to advance accessible, person-centered, equitable, high-quality health care for diverse communities through practice, education, advocacy, research, and leadership. If elected, how do you propose to advance AANP's mission and strategic plan?
Our current population-foci nurse practitioner educational system severely restricts NPs in full practice positions with its pediatric and adult-geriatric models. AANP can be poised to introduce new strategies to open discourse with the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, National League of Nursing, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education to replace the Consensus Model of 2010, promote a full life-span educational model which requires specialty practice endorsement in acute care, women's health, pediatrics, emergency, aesthetics, dermatology, cardiology with appropriate education and certifications.