Focusing Nurses on Long- and Short-term Health Needs of Veterans and Their Families

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I’m always humbled when I speak with veterans or families of veterans. The commitment to duty of the military and the sacrifices their families make—long periods of being single parents; nerve-racking times wondering after the well-being of a spouse or child; missed birthdays, graduations, and milestones—never cease to amaze me.

served2Last October, nurse Linda Schwartz, at the time commissioner of Veterans Affairs for Connecticut, spoke at the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) meeting about the health needs of veterans.

As we pointed out in a blog post about the meeting, she emphasized “the importance of knowing whether a patient has a military service history because many health issues may be service associated. For example, toxic effects from depleted uranium and heavy metals such as those found in ordinance or from exposure to agents like Agent Orange may not manifest themselves for years.” […]

2016-11-21T13:03:34-05:00November 11th, 2014|Nursing|1 Comment
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Choosing Wisely: American Academy of Nursing Highlights Unnecessary Nursing Practices

The American Academy of Nursing (AAN) recently announced that it has joined the ABIM Choosing Wisely campaign with a list that focuses specifically on nursing interventions or practices that are not supported by evidence. The list is called Five Things Nurses and Patients Should Question. Here it is in short form—full explanations of the rationale for each item are available at the above link.

  1. Don’t automatically initiate continuous electronic fetal heart rate Screen Shot 2014-10-24 at 11.10.10 AMmonitoring during labor for women without risk factors; consider intermittent auscultation first.
  2. Don’t let older adults lay in bed or only get up to a chair during their hospital stay.
  3. Don’t use physical restraints with an older hospitalized patient.
  4. Don’t wake the patient for routine care unless the patient’s condition or care specifically requires it.
  5. Don’t place or maintain a urinary catheter in a patient unless there is a specific indication to do so.

The Choosing Wisely initiative encourages health care provider organizations to create their own lists of tests and procedures that may be overused, unsafe, or duplicated elsewhere. Using these lists, providers can initiate conversation with their patients to help them choose the most necessary and evidence-based care for their individual situations. The lists are not meant to be proscriptive, and also address situations where the procedures may be appropriate. […]

2016-11-21T13:03:40-05:00October 24th, 2014|health care policy, nursing perspective, nursing research, patient engagement, Patients|6 Comments
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American Academy of Nursing Spotlights Veteran Health Care, Names New ‘Living Legends’

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Have You Ever Served? For me, the annual meeting of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) is a great venue for networking and connecting with old friends (including some from nursing school days 40 years ago). And there are always interesting sessions such as the Living Legends awards and a presentation about veterans’ health.

Few schools of nursing teach nursing history anymore, and unless you’re plugged into a professional association you won’t know about the accomplishments of those who’ve shaped the profession. That’s a shame. Nursing has been rich with women and men of action who’ve forged new ways of thinking about, practicing, and teaching nursing. At this year’s AAN meeting, four nursing movers and shakers were added as “living legends” (the Academy’s highest honor) during the event that’s always a highlight at the annual meeting. This year’s “class” includes:

(Ret.) General Clara Adams-Ender, whose army career began as a private and ended as a brigadier general (she was the first nurse to become a general!) and chief of the Army Nurse Corps.

Hattie Bessent, a staunch advocate and leader in creating opportunities in nursing for minority groups.

Margaret Miles, a pioneer in pediatric nursing whose research and work with parents of critically ill children has led to family-centered care practices in ICUs.

Jean Watson, whose ground-breaking theory development, research and practice around the science of caring is known around the world.

The health needs of veterans. Another […]

2016-11-21T13:06:13-05:00October 24th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment
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Nurse ‘Edge Runners’ from the AJN Archives

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

In her message to nurses for Nurses Week, ANA president Karen Daley notes, “This year’s National Nurses Week theme, ‘Delivering Quality and Innovation in Patient Care,’ emphasizes our role and influence in making the health care system work better for patients. Think about the many ways you innovate and improve care.”

The Frontier Nursing Service evolved from the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies initiated by Mary Breckenridge in 1925. The Frontier Nursing Service evolved from the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies initiated by Mary Breckenridge in 1925.

We’ve been publishing our series on “Edge Runners”—those nurses designated by the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) as creative, out-of-the box innovators. In January, we profiled Marilyn Rantz for her innovative program to assist seniors to age in place; in March, we highlighted Deborah Gross for her Chicago Parent Program; for May, we have a profile of Donna Torrisi, founder of a nurse-managed family health center in Philadelpia. (The AJN articles linked to in this post will be free for the next week, until May 13, in honor of Nurses Week.)

But of course, there were ‘edge runners’ well before the AAN starting naming them. Nurses have a time-worn tradition of using their creativity and problem solving to provide care to those who need it, and AJN has chronicled many of these movers and shakers over the years.

Here’s a couple of my favorites from AJN’s archives (click […]

2016-11-21T13:07:39-05:00May 7th, 2013|Nursing|0 Comments
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More Evidence: Should We Get Rid of 12-Hour Nursing Shifts, Despite Their Popularity?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

A new study in Health Affairs provides yet more support that reliance on 12-hour nursing shifts (or longer—we all know that shifts often extend a bit longer than scheduled) should be reconsidered. The study supports previous findings of increased burnout among nurses who work shifts longer than eight hours, but finds as well that longer shifts (13 hours or more) are associated with increased levels of patient dissatisfaction.

Despite these negatives for both nurses and patients, 80% of nurses surveyed across four states said they were happy with their hospitals’ scheduling practices.

I imagine that, with all the recent emphasis on patient satisfaction scores, this study will make nurse executives and hospital administrators take notice—especially as consumers become more aware of the research through coverage like this story at the U.S News & World Report site.

We’ve had evidence for a while that the 12-hour shift is not a best practice. For example, in 2004, Anne Rogers and colleagues also published research in Health Affairs. In their national survey of over 1,000 nurses, they found that most nurses generally worked longer than their actual shifts; nearly 40% of shifts were longer than 12 hours, and 14% of respondents had worked “16 or more consecutive hours at least once during the four-week period.” More importantly, they found that “the likelihood of making an error increased with longer work hours and was three times higher when nurses worked […]

2016-11-21T13:08:51-05:00November 27th, 2012|nursing perspective|19 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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