About Amy M. Collins, managing editor

Managing editor, American Journal of Nursing

Resources for Staying Safe as Wildfires and Poor Air Quality Events Increase

Orange sky from wildfire smoke in San Francisco Photo by Tegan Miele/Unsplash

Find out what you need to know about the health risks of wildfire smoke and the best ways to keep you and your family or patients informed and safe—whether through use of a smartphone app, limiting outdoor activities, buying an air filtration device, or other means.

As we enter summer, wildfire season is upon us and will extend into the early fall. Wildfires in the United States have increased in frequency and severity over the past several decades. The states with the most wildfires are California, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Oklahoma. This year, as the season ramps up, Canada has experienced record-setting wildfires, with smoke causing air quality alerts and evacuations in Canada, the northeastern United States, and Europe.

The health risks of wildfire smoke.

With these fires comes poor air quality, with the main culprit being a pollutant known as particulate matter (PM) 2.5. These tiny particles or droplets in the air are 2.5 microns or less in width and are able to travel deep into the respiratory tract. Exposure to fine particles can cause short-term health effects such as eye, nose, throat and lung irritation, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and shortness of breath. […]

2023-06-16T08:03:16-04:00June 16th, 2023|climate change, environmental health, environmental health, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Pediatric Mental Health Tops ECRI’s 2023 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Each year, the ECRI Institute creates a list of top 10 patient safety concerns along with actionable recommendations for institutions to reduce these risks.

Some years, the list includes repeat offenders such as medication errors and concerns surrounding staffing. In the past few years, the list has reflected the reality of living during a global pandemic, with 2022’s top 10 concerns including clinician’s mental health, supply chain disruptions, and vaccine coverage gaps. This year’s list moves away from the pandemic somewhat, but still includes some fallout from COVID-19, with the number one concern reflecting a crisis among our youth: pediatric mental health.

According to the report:

“Concern for pediatric mental health was already high during the 2010s due to the growing use of social media, limited access to pediatric behavioral health providers, drug and alcohol use, gun violence, and socioeconomic impact, among other stressors. However, pediatric mental health issues have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 29% increase in children age 3 to 17 experiencing anxiety and a 27% increase in depression in 2020 compared with 2016.”

The report lists some recommendations to confront this issue, including securing leadership support and resources to evaluate the organization’s pediatric […]

2023-04-05T12:25:54-04:00April 5th, 2023|patient safety|0 Comments
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Nurse Salaries Rose Last Year—But Will They Hold?

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

Median RN salaries in the United States rose by $5,000 from 2020 to 2021, while median advanced practice RN salaries jumped $13,000, according to the Nurse.com’s 2022 Nurse Salary Research Report. The report was based on the responses of 2,516 nurses to an online survey conducted in November and December of 2021. This and other data on nurses’ salaries are reported on in an article in AJN’s September In the News column.

Some other highlights from the report include:

  • Nurses in all regions of the United States reported gains except in the region comprising Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington DC, where the RN median salary dropped by $4,000 in 2020.
  • The median salary across all three licensed groups was $89,590 for union nurses compared with $75,000 for nonunion nurses.
  • The report suggests that a gender pay gap among RNs widened in 2021, with male RNs earning $14,000 higher than the median salary for female RNs. (However, the sample size of male respondents was disproportionately small, and differences in clinical setting, higher acuity specialties, and certification levels—all of which influence pay—were not explored.)

[…]

2022-09-08T08:18:13-04:00September 8th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Column Spotlight: Professional Development and Leadership  

What you didn’t know you needed to know.

AJN’s interim editor-in-chief Christine Moffa likes to say that when you read articles online rather than subscribing to and thumbing through a print issue of a journal like AJN, you risk missing out on all the rich content “you didn’t know that you needed to know.” For this reason, we’ve taken to highlighting some of our columns here—and we thought our Professional Development column was particularly appropriate this week as we celebrate Nurses Month and the American Nurses Association four weekly themes: self-care, recognition, professional development, and community engagement.

Lifelong education to advance careers, improve patient care.

The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health report highlights the importance of lifelong education, not only so nurses can advance their own careers but also as a way to improve patient care. AJN’s Professional Development column focuses on professional and leadership development. It includes a series on leadership coordinated by the American Organization of Nurse Executives, highlighting topics of interest to nurse managers and emerging nurse leaders, and a series on conflict engagement.

Other varied topics include finding joy in the workplace and supporting staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Upcoming installments include an article on narrative writing as an outlet for stress and burnout and an article on peer reviewing. […]

2022-05-19T09:43:35-04:00May 19th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Staffing Tops ECRI 2022 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns List for First Time

Staffing: the problem has ‘grown exponentially.’

Each year, ECRI Institute creates a list of top 10 patient safety concerns in order “to support organizations in their efforts to proactively identify and respond to threats to patient safety.” Over the years, some repeat offenders have made the cut, for example managing behavioral health, patient falls, and issues related to infection control.

Some of these concerns again appear on the 2022 top 10 patient safety concerns list, but the list also has some notable first-time offenders—a fact that reflects the conditions in which we’ve been living over the past two years during this global pandemic: These include COVID-19’s effect on clinicians’ mental health, vaccine coverage gaps, and supply chain disruptions, to name a few.

However, the number one concern this year is one that has been a central and unrelenting issue for nurses, even before the pandemic—staffing shortages.

According to the ECRI:

“The number one topic on this year’s list has been steadily growing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and impacts patients and staff on all levels: staffing shortages…Prior to 2021, there was a growing shortage of both clinical and non-clinical staff, but the problem has grown exponentially. In early January 2022, it was estimated that 24% of US hospitals were […]

2022-03-24T10:04:38-04:00March 24th, 2022|Nursing|0 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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