Looking Back to Look Forward: Top Health, Nursing, Policy, and Clinical Practice News of 2019

Photo via Flickr / Luis Marina

Each January, AJN takes a close look at the most noteworthy health care–related news of the past year, from general health stories and policy to specific nursing and clinical issues. Which stories stood out in 2019? Here’s a rundown:

Health care news

  • Negative trends intensify for key measures of population health and access to care. As life expectancy declines again in the United States, signaling a three-year trend, the Affordable Care Act remains under threat from GOP-sponsored litigation; children have been losing coverage; new work requirements and paperwork barriers are undercutting Medicaid coverage gains; and rising drug costs are in the spotlight.
  • Cyberattacks and hospital data security. Health care organizations’ cybersecurity spending lags behind that of other industries.
  • A changing climate. As environmental protections are weakened or rolled back, new research details the significant and long-lasting health consequences of climate change.
  • Women’s reproductive health. The U.S. maternal mortality rate continues to rise, and several states have passed legislation to curtail abortion access.
  • Society in distress. In 2019, Americans experienced the public health consequences of political discord, poverty, and unaddressed social needs, as magnified by the crisis at the border and rising rates of gun violence and homelessness.

2020-01-14T09:16:17-05:00January 14th, 2020|health care policy, Nursing|0 Comments
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Why Do Journalists Ignore Nurses?

And what are we going to do about it?

We’ve all seen the stories in print or watched the video clips:

  • In a story about a hospital’s response to a disaster, the hospital administrator and/or a physician describe the actions of the staff, while behind them one can see nurses rushing about.
  • In a story about patient survival after a harrowing event, it’s the physician alone who is interviewed about the patient’s care and recovery.

Nurses—and nursing’s role—are made invisible; our contributions are devalued, relegated to little more than a backdrop for most stories about health care or news involving delivery of services. And yet we all know that nurses were intimately involved in the event and outcomes. In ignoring nurses’ experiences and perspectives, health care coverage perpetuates nursing’s invisibility and ignores nursing’s central role in health care.

A replication study reports little progress after 20 years.

In the October issue, Diana Mason and colleagues present their report of a study they conducted as an adjunct to their recent replication of the 1997 Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media. In the replication study,

” . . . nurses were identified as sources in only 2% of health news stories in the same print publications investigated in the earlier study, showing no improvement in […]

2018-10-08T10:41:16-04:00October 8th, 2018|Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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AJN February Issue News: Linking RN Perception of Workplace Safety and Patient Care, Aid for Family Caregivers, More

AJN’s monthly news section covers timely and important research and policy stories that are relevant to the nursing world. Here are some of the stories you’ll find in our current issue:

A hospital nurse prepares toxic medication using a biological safety cabinet. Photo © Horizon International Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo.

How Does RN Perception of Workplace Safety Relate to Patient Care?

A new report by health care consulting firm Press Ganey found that higher nurse-rated scores for workplace safety and surveillance capacity were associated with higher nurse ratings of quality of care, lower rates of missed-care events, and lower rates of pressure ulcers and patient falls.

Bipartisan Bills Propose Assistance for Caregivers

Two bills currently before Congress would reduce burdens of care for family members, if passed: one would establish […]

2017-02-21T10:16:42-05:00February 21st, 2017|Nursing|0 Comments
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AJN in January: Triglycerides, HPV–Related Oral Cancers, Year in Review, More

The January issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles we’d like to bring to your attention.

CE Feature: “Triglycerides: Do They Matter?”

In light of the increasing incidences of obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes, lowering triglyceride levels has been getting renewed interest. In addition to the focus on lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention, clinicians need to be aware of the role of triglycerides—their contribution to CVD, and the causes and treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. In this article, the authors discuss the importance of lowering triglyceride levels and review the lifestyle changes and pharmacologic treatments that can help achieve this goal.

CE Feature: “Human Papillomavirus-Related Oral Cancers: The Nurse’s Role in Mitigating Stigma and Dispelling Myths”

The prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV)–related oral cancers has been rising, with the cancers occurring in adults at a younger age than HPV-negative oral cancers typically do and in men more often than women. Because HPV is sexually transmitted, diagnosis with an HPV-related oral cancer may prompt feelings of shame and guilt. It’s essential for nurses to educate patients on HPV transmission and HPV-related oral cancer, thus helping to mitigate the stigma and dispel myths, and to promote vaccination in at-risk populations, including children and young adults.

In the […]

2016-12-30T10:46:54-05:00December 30th, 2016|Nursing|0 Comments
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Ebola, One Year Later: What We Learned for the Next Big Epidemic

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

Scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles budding from an infected VERO E6 cell (35,000x magnification). Credit: NIAID Scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles budding from an infected VERO E6 cell (35,000x magnification). Credit: NIAID

U.S. hospitals have not seen a case of Ebola virus disease since November 11, 2014, when Dr. Craig Spencer was discharged from Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. While the number of new infections has declined dramatically in the West African countries where the 2014–2015 epidemic began, it is virtually certain that the disease will continue to resurface.

This epidemic was by far the largest and most geographically widespread Ebola epidemic to date, with approximately 28,000 cases (suspected, probable, or confirmed) and more than 11,000 deaths in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, the three hardest-hit countries. The seven other countries affected account for a combined total of 34 confirmed (and two probable) cases and 15 deaths.

According to a recent WHO report, these numbers include (through March of this year) 815 confirmed or probable cases among health care workers, more than half of whom were nurses or nurses’ aides. (Doctors and medical students made up about 12% of […]

2016-11-21T13:01:48-05:00November 6th, 2015|healthcare social media, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|11 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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