Pinrels, by Daquella manera / Daniel Lobo, via Flickr
In the May issue of AJN Bunny Wong writes about the recently reported rise in infant bed deaths over a 20-year period. From 1984 to 2004, the rate of deaths resulting from accidental strangulation and suffocation of infants quadrupled.
The most important question, of course, is: why? Wong writes: Read the rest of this entry ?
Diana Mason at a farewell lunch in AJN’s offices, Tuesday, May 28.
Today is my last day as editor-in-chief of AJN. When I arrived in 1999 I had a vision for repositioning the journal and along with a superb editorial team have worked hard to realize that vision. In April AJN was selected by the BioMedical and Life Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association as one of the 100 most influential journals of the century in biology and medicine (the only nursing journal to make the list). That single accomplishment speaks volumes about the commitment to excellence that we’ve embraced, as had my predecessors at the journal. Look for my Editorial in the July issue, where I’ll say more about this.
The challenges facing publishing demand new visions and renewed energies. I’ll continue as editor-in-chief emeritus during a transitional Read the rest of this entry ?
Head louse by Eran Finkle, via Flickr.
I’m a public health nurse and I have a weekly public radio program, Healthstyles, in New York City. Fifteen years ago, when my kids were preschoolers, there was a local outbreak of head lice, and parents kept asking me to do a show about it. I thought it was a boring topic. They persisted and I did the show.
During that radio show I invited listeners to call in; in radio-speak, “the board lit up.” A mom called and said she’d applied an OTC shampoo for head lice, in three separate applications, to her six-year-old son’s head, but he still had nits and live lice—what should she do? A father reported that he’d applied another OTC shampoo for head lice to his nine-year-old daughter’s head, wrapped her head in plastic wrap, and let her sleep through the night that way; he asked, “Was that dangerous to do?” Producing this segment opened my eyes to how little we knew about the health effects of such treatments on children. It was a nursing “Aha!” moment: head lice weren’t just a big nuisance, they were a serious public health issue. Read the rest of this entry ?
Virtual Reality Headset Prototype (circa 1968). Photo by Pargon, via Flickr.
If you want to know what the ICU of the future will be like, think of an extremely ill patient connected to myriad tubes and monitors; watched by cameras; every sigh, snore, or change in breath sound picked up by an audio feed.
Then remove the patient, leaving just monitors, speakers, and video screens. Read the rest of this entry ?
By tomsaint11, via Flickr.
As promised, AJN’s editors met this morning with Gary Schwitzer, who runs HealthNewsReview.org. He was kind enough to mention us shortly thereafter in a blog post that also noted he’d been meeting with folks at Consumer Reports this week about how they can more effectively assess health care and health care reform.
Some gleanings from our wide-ranging conversation with Schwitzer follow: Read the rest of this entry ?
I went to a presentation about how to improve health care news coverage in the U.S., which was mostly about how many health news reports don’t cover basic issues like costs, availability or provide even a hint of context about whether something is truly broadly beneficial.
That’s noted health journalist Christine Gorman at Global Health Report about how coverage of health care in the U.S. (and internationally as well, especially when it comes to public health issues) lacks objectivity and is often driven by those with a vested interest in radically simplifying the facts.
AJN, it happens, will be meeting later this morning with one of the speakers at the Association of Health Care Journalists presentation that Gorman had just attended when she wrote her post: Gary Schwitzer, ”fomer CNN reporter and current journalism professor who founded HealthNewsReview.org.”
Schwitzer is on a mission to improve health care reporting. His Web site takes major health care stories about medications, treatments, and other issues and subjects them to rigorous criteria regarding whether they provide readers crucial context, accuracy, and balance.
Nurses and patients need to know that the news about new drugs and treatments isn’t always as accurate as it could be. Critical thinking is needed, and Schwitzer is helping provide us with the tools.
Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor
Image of H1N1 influenza virus taken in CDC Influenza Laboratory
Here are more images from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"Buck Up," by zenera / via Flickr.
According to a useful overview by the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, nurses, insurers, and others are fighting to be included in the health care reform debate. We know the insurers can take care of themselves, so let’s focus on the nurses:
Hundreds of nurses last week rallied on Capitol Hill in an attempt to have their voices and opinions on health care reform heard and included as lawmakers begin to draft legislation, Roll Call reports. The rally included the California Nurses Association - National Nurses Organizing Committee, the American Academy of Nursing, the American Nurses Association and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. According to Roll Call, some of the groups disagree on the details of reform, including whether reform should include a single-payer system, but are united in their effort to be included in discussions on overhaul legislation. Michelle Artz, a lobbyist for ANA, said, “We want to make sure this isn’t a physician-centric dialogue” (Ackley, Roll Call, 5/18).
As far as I know, the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) wasn’t actually present at that rally. But what matters is that there is growing recognition that effective health care reform will not happen without the involvement of nurses. The AAN has been educating policymakers about nurse-led models of care and the need to remove the barriers to this care, including opening up criteria for who can lead a medical home (right now, you have to be a physician to qualify under the criteria set by NCQU, the National Committee on Quality Assurance). Read the rest of this entry ?
By wonker, via Flickr.
According to a story in The Australian, the drug company Merck has been accused of paying nurses to sift through patient medical records in search of potential candidates for the drug Vioxx. Here’s what nurse ethicist Douglas Olsen, who recently wrote a two-part article (here’s part one; part two is here) for AJN on nurses and the pharmaceutical industry, wrote to us about the story:
The news report demonstrates the public’s visceral sense that the Merck program in Australia was unethical. Nurses, as well as doctors and pharmacists, can anticipate righteous indignation whenever their clinical deliberations appear compromised by a company’s desire to sell a particular drug. Read the rest of this entry ?
I’ve only seen the promos for Nurse Jackie, the new Showtime series with Edie Falco as the lead character. That’s right. Not Doctor Jackie, but Nurse Jackie.
I will probably be stoned by some of my colleagues for not boycotting a program that revolves around a nurse who has an addiction. But as far as I can tell, Nurse Jackie is tough, funny, and, above all, a smart nurse who is a fierce advocate for her patients. After so many hospital-based programs that feature doctors doing nursing care and nurses in bit parts taking their abuse, I’m all for a nurse character who is not perfect but who is outspoken and outrageous about getting her patients the care they need. Read the rest of this entry ?
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