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

CE Feature: “Improving Outcomes for Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease: Part 1”

The burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is rising both in this country and worldwide. An estimated 10% to 15% of U.S. adults are currently living with CKD. The greatest opportunities to reduce the impact of CKD arise early, when most patients are being followed in primary care; yet many clinicians are inadequately educated on this disease. This two-part article aims to provide nurses with the basic information necessary to assess and manage patients with CKD. This month, part 1 offers an overview of the disease, describes identification and etiology, and discusses ways to slow disease progression. Part 2, which will appear next month, addresses disease complications and treatment of kidney failure.

CE Feature: “Nursing’s Evolving Role in Patient Safety”

In its 1999 report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the Institute of Medicine suggested that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die annually as a result of medical errors. The report urged health care institutions to break the silence surrounding such errors and to implement changes that would promote a culture of safety. To explore the nurse’s historical and contemporary role in promoting patient safety, the authors of this article conducted a content analysis of 1,086 AJN articles published from 1900 through 2015. Their findings reveal that nursing’s emphasis on patient safety increased as patient care became more complex, and as nurses developed a professional identity.

Executive Summary: “Transforming Moral Distress into Moral Resilience in Nursing“

This report describes a collaborative project in which nurse clinicians, researchers, and ethicists met to examine practices for addressing moral distress. AJN’s special online supplement on mitigating the detrimental effects of moral distress and fostering moral resilience, a result of the project, can be accessed here.

Supporting Family Caregivers: “Medication Management for People with Dementia“

This fourth installment in a series published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute offers recommendations for nurses as they teach family caregivers how to manage medications for a family member with dementia.

There’s much more in our February issue, including an AJN Reports on the growing phenomenon of “death cafés” and a profile of forensic nursing pioneer Ann Burgess. Click here to browse the table of contents and explore the issue on our Web site.

A note on the cover:

On this month’s cover is a watercolor by artist Vivian Jay, MSN, FNP-BC. “I painted this bright and bold watercolor . . . of a kidney to highlight the complexity and anatomy of the organ,” she wrote on her Etsy page, where she displays several different anatomical paintings among paintings of other subjects. For Jay, who works at the Stanford Health Care Anesthesia Preoperative Evaluation Clinic in Stanford, California, painting is both an outlet for creativity and a partner to her career in health care. “I have always been drawn to the fluidity of watercolors as a means to express myself and as an avenue to manage stress,” she told AJN. Jay said she recently began creating medical and anatomical watercolors to advance her medical knowledge and to showcase the human body in a “dynamic and fresh way.”