About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

Senior editor, American Journal of Nursing; editor of AJN Off the Charts.

Wrapping Up the Health Care Journalists’ Meeting with Sebelius, Frieden, Pronovost, and Others

By Shawn Kennedy, interim editor-in-chief

So I got back from the Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Chicago and a colleague asked, “How was the meeting?” I automatically said it was “good.” But then, I started to think about why I said that and what I’d found valuable—in brief, it’s networking and gaining new information.

I was looking for new information about the latest health issues—mostly about how the experts see health reform shaping up—and about any new issues or initiatives in health reporting. I attended sessions on how the new health reform legislation will affect hospitals (see my recent post on this) as well as state and local health agencies—but there were also presentations on monitoring food safety, lessons learned from H1N1, guidelines for writing about health guidelines, and patient safety advocacy; the new CDC director launched a report on state tobacco use (another post); and I watched a challenging but fascinating primer on health insurance financing from an actuary.

Some things I found worth noting:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying she will not stand by while some health insurance companies attempt to deny claims and push breast cancer patients off their plans. She commented, “It will be hand-to-hand combat if they try.” (See Reuters report for full story.)

Tom Frieden (CDC director) saying that increasing tobacco taxes is the single most effective tool to reduce tobacco use. (Yet taxes in South Carolina have been seven cents since 1977!)

Aida Giachello from the Midwest Latino Health […]

2016-11-21T13:18:02-05:00April 27th, 2010|health care policy|0 Comments
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Hospital Execs Assert They’re ‘Scared to Death’ by Reform Measures

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

On Friday, at the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) meeting in Chicago, I attended a session in which a panel of hospital executives discussed how their facilities would be affected by health care reform. They weren’t really sure of anything except that they’d probably lose money.

The panel included Richard Gamelli of Stritch School of Medicine and the Loyola University Health System, Jeffrey Hillebrand from NorthShore University HealthSystem, and Jim Skogsbergh from Advocate Health Care.

Skogsbergh was the most dire: “I’m scared to death about health care reform and I’m not sure how it will all shake out. The only thing I do expect is to that I’m going to get paid a lot less.” An attendee asked if hospitals would do better now that patients they cared for as charity patients would have health insurance under the new law. Gamelli answered that that depended on the insurance. Currently, he said, his facility is only reimbursed for 90% of costs incurred by Medicaid patients and 50% of those incurred by Medicare patients.

Where’s the innovation? The session was disappointing in that it was mostly about how these megahospital systems would deal with the financial implications. It would have been interesting to have a perspective from a small community hospital. And other than a program mentioned by Hillebrand to try to reduce hospital readmissions among patients with chronic disease, there seemed to be little focus on finding new approaches to cutting costs through improving quality.

2016-11-21T13:18:03-05:00April 26th, 2010|health care policy|0 Comments
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CDC’s Frieden: Some States Lag Far Behind Others In Reducing Smoking

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, editorial director

At the opening briefing at the conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists, Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), unveiled a new report on state-specific tobacco control measures. As health commissioner in New York City until he took his current post last June, Frieden gained a reputation for tackling chronic health issues. (We reported in 2007 on his controversial diabetes initiative.)

Frieden says that while there is a clear change in societal attitudes towards tobacco use (for example, he says, we’ve moved from “Would you like a cigarette?” to “Do you mind if I smoke?”), progress in reducing tobacco use has been stalled since 2004. He noted the significant success of graphic “counter-marketing” efforts (ads depicting individuals who have physical disabilities, amputations, and laryngectomies as a result of tobacco use) in reducing smoking rates (though at least one study reported by the BBC has suggested that such in-your-face ads may be more likely to keep people smoking than to make them quit). However, said Frieden, “Tobacco taxation is the single most effective tool, accounting for half or more of the reduction in tobacco use.” Among the findings Frieden highlighted: […]

2016-11-21T13:18:04-05:00April 23rd, 2010|Nursing|0 Comments
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Medication Adherence in the Mentally Ill, the Mixed State of Cancer Survivorship Care, When Good People Faint, More

We’ve already noted one or two of them here in recent weeks, but here are some excerpts and links to several other articles of note in the April issue of AJN, in case you missed them:

The percentage of prescribed medications that are actually taken by patients is estimated to be as low as 60%—and among patients with chronic conditions, it may be even less. Patients with mental disorders may have even lower rates of adherence than those with physical conditions. Suzanne Hardeman, an NP and licensed professional counselor, and Meera Narasimhan, a physician, have culled from the available literature a list of strategies that have been shown to improve adherence in patients with mood and psychotic disorders.

That’s from a sensible and useful article on improving medication adherence in patients with mental disorders.

For a report on the good and bad news about where we are with providing cancer survivorship programs and support, read “Building Cancer Survivorship Care,” which points out some excellent resources, but also notes that “few cancer patients have access to survivorship care.” Still!

Laura Dean faints after witnessing an elderly man collapse with an apparent heart attack. James Parsons passes out as an RN begins venipuncture for collection of a lab specimen. Nursing student Melanie Simms faints while observing her first surgical procedure.

“Recognizing and Treating Vasovagal Syncope” gives a nice overview of this common problem, who is most likely to be afflicted by it, how to prevent injuries when it happens, and how nurses can […]

2016-11-21T13:18:06-05:00April 22nd, 2010|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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Turf Wars Aside, How Do NPs and MDs Really Differ?

By Christine Moffa, MS, RN, AJN clinical editor

There’s been a lot of talk lately about turf wars between NP’s and physicians, especially when it comes to the much discussed U.S. shortage of primary care providers. Before going back to school and getting a master’s in nursing education, I batted around the idea of becoming a nurse practitioner. It seemed like the ideal next step for someone who was happy being a clinician but wanted to take on an advanced role.

However, there was something that didn’t sit right with me about becoming an NP—namely, my fear of public perception. I’m not sure most people know exactly what the role of an NP is and how it differs from that of a physician, particularly in primary care. I’ve seen patients call their primary care NP “doctor [insert first name here],” which to me illustrates the confusion.

When people ask me the difference, I myself have a hard time articulating it. How do I respond when someone says something like this: “if entry to medical school and residency is typically more competitive than for advanced degree nursing programs, and if physicians spend a longer time attending tougher programs, how do you justify their doing the same work as NPs?” (For instance, when I was in school we, along with the NP candidates, were only required to take two semesters of pathophysiology!)

Now, I’ve been to an NP as a patient, and I was happy with the care I received. She certainly […]

2016-11-21T13:18:07-05:00April 20th, 2010|career, nursing perspective, students|6 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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