In AJN’s July Issue, a Guest Editorial by Angelina Jolie and Other Essential Reading

The July issue of AJN is now live.

Among the highlights is a guest editorial by Angelina Jolie, “Addressing Health Inequities in Survivors of Domestic Violence,” which explains the importance of bruise detection technologies for patients with varying skin tones. Referencing her daughter, who is from Ethiopia, she writes:

“Even as my family has access to high-quality medical care, simple diagnoses are missed because of race and continued prioritization of white skin in medicine.”

On this topic in the same issue, see the Nurse Innovators column, “Improving Bruise Detection in Patients with Dark Skin Tone.

A useful read about getting patients up and moving again after surgery is a CE feature article, “Overcoming Movement-Evoked Pain to Facilitate Postoperative Recovery.” which emphasizes a multifaceted approach that includes timely evaluation and comprehensive care planning.

Improving Medication Safety in the ICU” is about a nurse-led initiative to reduce medication errors by increasing adherence to safety protocols, including compliance with barcode scanning before medication administration.

A Viewpoint addresses a possible solution to the thorny problem of how a hospital and its nurses handle patient access to medical cannabis.

See also the extensive health care news sections, the […]

Recommended Reading from the June Issue of AJN

A virtual RN provides support for a bedside RN on an inpatient unit. The June issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles in this issue that we’d like to highlight. Note that some may be free only to subscribers.

Initiating Virtual Nursing in General Inpatient Care

This article describes how one hospital developed a virtual RN role for experienced nurses to support bedside RNs and patients on designated general care inpatient units. The photo on our cover this month shows a bedside nurse presenting educational material to her patient, the importance of which a virtual RN looking on from the tablet will help explain and reinforce.

Original Research: Patient Perception of Fall Risk in the Acute Care Setting

This study reveals the disconnect between hospitalized patients’ fall risk assessment results and their own perceptions of their fall risk.

Original Research: The Impact of COVID-19 on Pain Care Among Older Adults

These study findings highlight the many challenges pain management nurses faced, as well as opportunities to improve the health system and enhance nursing practice.

Hospice Nurse Ethics and Institutional Policies Toward Medical Aid in Dying

This article reviews the ethics of requiring nurses to leave […]

April Issue Highlights: Nurses’ Views on Substance Users, Decarbonizing Health Care, More

“I was always the strong one, the one with the answers, the one people came to for advice….” – from the April Reflections essay, “Take Off the Mask: Getting Real About Depression, Trauma, and Loss

The April issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.

CE: How to Write an Effective Résumé

In today’s job market, nursing students and new graduate nurses need to develop an employer-focused résumé geared toward a specific job. This article can assist.

Nurses’ Self-Assessed Knowledge, Attitudes, and Educational Needs Regarding Patients with Substance Use Disorder

This research study’s findings indicate that, “in general, hospital nurses have negative attitudes toward patients with substance use disorder” and are in need of empathy-based education.

AJN Reports: Decarbonizing Health Care

Nurses can be involved in solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the health sector.

[…]

July Issue: Yoga for Patients with Psychiatric Illness, What We Know About Long COVID, More

“We have studied elder mistreatment for decades. . . We wait for it to happen and then find those to blame. What if we started from a position of prevention?”—Guest editorial, “Elder Mistreatment Prevention Rounds in Nursing Homes”

The July issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.

CE: An Evidence-Based Yoga Practice for Hospitalized Adults on Medical–Psychiatric Units

This article—winner of the 2021 Nurse Faculty Scholars/AJN Mentored Writing Award—describes a project in which nurses used structured yoga sessions for patients with psychiatric illness to provide stress relief, promote relaxation, reduce anxiety, and improve quality of care.

AJN Reports: Long COVID: What We Know Now

An overview of this emerging health issue—and what’s being done to study and address it.

Evaluating the Impact of Smartphones on Nursing Workflow: Lessons Learned

The authors compared nursing perceptions, satisfaction, task efficiency, and interruptions before and after introducing the use of hospital-issued smartphones in a pediatric ICU and a satellite ED.

[…]

2022-06-27T08:52:40-04:00June 27th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments

Should Medical Errors Result in Jail Time?

Image via PxHere

On March 25, Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and negligent abuse of an impaired adult for a 2019 medication error that resulted in the death of a patient. We covered this story as it first unfolded three years ago. In fact, the most recent update on our blog, published in March 2019, reported that state health officials had considered the circumstances surrounding the error and declined to take any action.

Outrage from multiple nursing and health care organizations.

Subsequently, however, the Tennessee board of nursing revoked Vaught’s license and the decision was taken to charge her after all. In the past weeks, Vaught’s conviction has sent shock waves through the health care professional community, and many organizations have spoken against the verdict:

From the statement by the American Nurses Association:

“Health care delivery is highly complex. It is inevitable that mistakes will happen, and systems will fail. … The non-intentional acts of Individual nurses like RaDonda Vaught should not be criminalized to ensure patient safety.”

From the statement of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses:

“Decades of safety research, including the Institute of Medicine’s pioneering report To Err Is Human, has demonstrated that […]

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