Nurse Practitioners and Health Care Reform: “A Solution in Plain Sight” say Former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and PA Governor Ed Rendell

“Lion’s Gate Bridge Sunrise,” by thelastminute, via Flickr.

The American Academy of Nursing just held a news briefing on nurse-managed care and health centers as solutions for our ailing health care system. Former Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary and now president of University of Miami, Donna Shalala; Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell; Tine Hansen, CEO of the National Consortium of Nursing Centers and executive director of the Convenient Care Association; and Susan Sherman, president of the Independence Foundation, sent a coherent message: nurse practitioners (NPs) have developed an infrastructure of health centers and convenient care clinics (such as MinuteClinics) that can help our nation reform a health care delivery system that is currently unable to meet the primary health care needs of its people. […]

New Nurses Blogging: The Dedicated, the Feisty, the Sleep-Deprived

Hospital by boliston / Adrian Boliston, via Flickr.

When I went looking for blogs by student nurses recently, I found plenty—but most appeared to be deserted, as if their authors had literally packed up and moved away after graduation. That’s understandable—and kind of a shame. Things can get interesting fast when one finds oneself suddenly working with real people in an ED or an ICU. Lucky for us, a few newly minted nurses are blogging on just that. (To comply with HIPAA regulations, most bloggers report that they alter patient details and scenarios.)

At Call Bells Make Me Nervous, Maha, “a shiny new nurse” (degree unspecified), blogs […]

School Nurses, H1N1, Understaffing, and Public Safety

We’ve posted here, here, and here in recent days about the importance of school nurses during the H1N1 outbreak.

Now here’s strong testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor from the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction on why school nurses were crucial during the H1N1 outbreak and why understaffing issues must be addressed for the sake of public health.

“At last count, there are approximately 2,844 nurses who serve California’s 6.3 million public school students. That translates to a ratio of 2,227 students to every one school nurse, the largest student-to-nurse ratio in the country. This in no way, shape or form provides effective healthcare for the increasing numbers of students with complex chronic and immediate health needs that require daily care on our school campuses. If we had more school nurses on our campuses, perhaps they could have played an even greater role in early detection and prevention efforts.”

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