February Issue: Patient-to-Nurse Violence, The Future of Hospital at Home, More

“Workplace violence has become a familiar threat for those employed in a health care environment.”—Miranda Squire and Karen Hessler in this month’s Original Research article, “Patient-to-Nurse Violence During One-to-One Assignments: A Silent Epidemic”

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

AJN Reports: What’s the Future of Hospital at Home in the United States?

Programs offering this promising acute care model have proliferated since 2020, but payment and regulatory structures to address equity, oversight, and sustainability are needed.

CE: Caring for Patients After Ileostomy Surgery

A review of postoperative care following ileostomy, including hydration, medication, and nutritional management.

Original Research: Patient-to-Nurse Violence During One-to-One Assignments: A Silent Epidemic

This qualitative cross-sectional study investigated workplace violence from the perspective of nurses and nursing assistants working one-to-one assignments who experienced violent encounters with patients or visitors.

[…]

2023-01-30T09:10:36-05:00January 30th, 2023|Nursing|0 Comments

Workplace Violence Training: Beyond Tabletop Exercises 

Breaking the rules of ordinary nurse behavior.

Have you ever thrown a fire extinguisher at a hospital visitor?

In this issue, “Workplace Violence Training Using Simulation” describes how one Ohio health system employs classroom learning, hands-on defense techniques, and simulated violence scenarios to prepare staff for potentially violent situations, including the presence of an active shooter.

Part of this training involves learning how to break the rules of ordinary behavior. This is hard for nurses, because it’s so ingrained in us to protect and never to harm. Grabbing a fire extinguisher to throw at someone, even if that person is holding a gun, is not the initial reaction most of us would have in this situation.

“People often freeze or panic in response to acts of aggression, assault, or other violence, including shots fired,” note authors Robin Brown and colleagues. The remarkable workplace violence training that they have developed at their hospital aims to empower staff to respond effectively in dangerous situations. Key points of discussion include learning to

  • recognize the potential for violence in a patient or visitor,
  • identify our own behaviors that may trigger a person who already is upset,
  • and perhaps most importantly, overcome our panic and take action.

[…]

2018-10-12T10:25:56-04:00October 12th, 2018|Nursing, nursing research|0 Comments

October Issue: Treating Hemorrhagic Shock, Pain Management and Opioid Use Disorder, Workplace Violence, More

“Violent behavior seems to be an . . . increasingly frequent occurrence in hospitals and nursing care facilities. More and more, such violence is the result of intentional harm.” —editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her October editorial

The October issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: The Use of Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta in Treating Hemorrhagic Shock from Severe Trauma

Efforts to prevent death from hemorrhagic shock have resulted in the emergence of a new tool—resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA), a less invasive option for controlling hemorrhage in noncompressible areas of the body. This article outlines REBOA, describes its evolution, and discusses various considerations, pitfalls, and nursing implications.

CE: Perspectives on Palliative Nursing: Acute Pain Management for People with Opioid Use Disorder

The authors of this article—one in a series on palliative care developed with the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association—discuss how to manage acute pain effectively in patients receiving medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, which incorporates methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone.

Original Research: Journalists’ Experiences with Using Nurses as Sources in Health News Stories

The authors of a 2018 replication of the 1997 […]

2018-09-28T10:05:14-04:00September 28th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments

A National Standard to Prevent Health Care Workplace Violence?

National Nurses United joined members of Congress to speak out at a press conference unveiling findings from the Government Accountability Office’s 2016 report on workplace violence prevention in health care. Photo courtesy of National Nurses United.

In 2014, health care and social assistance workers suffered injuries from workplace violence at a rate more than four times higher than that of private sector employees. What can be done to keep health care workers safe on the job?

As we report in an April news article, National Nurses United, AFL–CIO, and other unions have petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to create a federal standard for preventing health care workplace violence. OSHA issued a request in December for information on the subject, and held a public hearing in January in which health care workers spoke about their experiences of workplace violence and their ideas for improving safety and protection policies. Through early April, the agency collected comments from the public on a federal standard—but uncertainty surrounds its direction under the Trump administration.

Nine states have enacted measures against workplace violence in health care settings. The toughest of these is California’s Workplace Violence Prevention Health Care standard, which was enacted last year. It requires health care facilities to implement a comprehensive program with multiple components for addressing workplace violence.

See more news stories from our April issue, which are free to access through April 21:

2017-04-14T08:49:22-04:00April 14th, 2017|Nursing|0 Comments

Preventing Violence Against Nurses

shawnkennedyWhen I graduated from nursing school, my first job was as an ED nurse at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. We’re talking about the 1970s, when drugs were plentiful and plenty of young people used them, especially hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and mescaline. Many times these patients were violent because of “bad trips” or because as the drugs wore off, they “crashed.” Sometimes these patients were accompanied by friends who were just as stoned as they were. I often experienced situations in which patients or visitors became disruptive and sometimes violent, usually because they didn’t understand what was happening to them or because they were scared and paranoid. We had no strategy or guidelines for proceeding—it was pretty much trial and error. Sometimes reasoning worked, but often it didn’t, and then we called security.

Dan Hartley.

Violence in the ED and hospital setting hasn’t gone away. In fact, I just learned from Dan Hartley, an epidemiologist with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), that according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 2003 and 2010 the health care and social […]

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