Amy M. Collins, managing editor, Author at Off the Charts

AJN’s May Issue: Telephone Follow-Up After Myocardial Revascularization, Hemodynamic Monitoring, Staffing Levels, Nurses Week, More

AJN’s May issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Coronary heart disease afflicts more than 16 million American adults. Myocardial revascularization has long been considered an effective treatment for this disease. Findings presented in our May original research article, “Telephone Follow-Up for Patients After Myocardial Revascularization: A Systematic Review,” support the use of telephone follow-up intervention after hospital discharge to assess patient knowledge, discuss patient concerns, and encourage behavioral and lifestyle changes. This article can earn you 2.6 continuing education (CE) credits.

Recently, there’s been a shift toward less invasive or noninvasive hemodynamic monitoring methods, and the use of “functional” indicators that more accurately predict fluid responsiveness. “Using Functional Hemodynamic Indicators to Guide Fluid Therapy,” a CE article that can earn you 2.6 credits, reviews the physiologic principles of functional hemodynamic indicators, describes how these indicators are calculated, and discusses when and how nurses can use them to guide fluid resuscitation in critically ill patients.

Celebrating Nurses Week. May’s In Our Community article describes how nurses from one hospital decided to forego traditional gifts during National Nurses Week and instead implemented a “Nurses Give Back” program in their community. How does your hospital celebrate? If you’re reading AJN on your iPad, you can listen to a podcast interview with the authors by clicking on the podcast icon on the first page of the article. The podcast is also available on our […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:43-05:00April 26th, 2013|career, nursing research|0 Comments

Misplacing Our Focus on Quality Improvement

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I welcome manuscripts written by nurses in clinical practice, especially comprehensive updates on managing a clinical syndrome or a common problem that readers would find informative and interesting. I call these the “meat and potato” papers—the ones that provide substantial content, the need-to-know information that will help nurses provide quality, evidence-based care. The best ones discuss the physiology and pathology underlying clinical symptoms, practice implications for ongoing monitoring and management, and patient and family teaching and concerns.

The other papers I value are those that describe quality improvement initiatives or processes that improve outcomes and, by following the SQUIRE (Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence) guidelines, are sufficiently detailed so that others can replicate them. (For information on what we seek to publish, see a recent blog post.)

Lately, though, I’m seeing more and more submissions that are not so much focused on how to use best practices to improve care, but rather on ways to improve scores on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. The authors typically describe the impetus for the improvement as low scores, get administrative support to set benchmarks for improving scores, and define success as improved scores. Often the changes are clinically insignificant but scores increase, so everyone is happy.

While the HCAHPS is a national measure that has been adopted as a measure of quality, it’s important to keep in mind that it measures […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:44-05:00April 24th, 2013|nursing perspective|1 Comment

AJN’s April Issue: Sustainable Health Care Environments, Preventing Kidney Injury, Lateral Violence, Mental Health, More

AJN’s April issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Mechanical prophylactic devices such as intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) devices, are applied, maintained, and monitored exclusively by nursing personnel. In this month’s original research article, “The Application of Intermittent Pneumatic Compression Devices for Thrombophylaxis,” the authors observed frequent misapplications of ordered IPC devices, and highlighted the need to study the consequences of such errors. This article is open access and can earn you 2.3 continuing education (CE) credits.

Over the past decade, the incidence of acute kidney injury requiring dialysis has risen sharply in the U.S., with associated death more than doubling. “Preventing and Responding to Acute Kidney Injury” makes the case that by identifying the signs and symptoms of acute kidney injury in its early stages, nurses may be able to help reduce the severity of injury and improve outcomes. This article is open access and can earn you 2.6 CE credits. You can also listen to a podcast interview with the author.

Lateral violence is a term used to describe what happens when a person acts in a verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive way toward someone else of a similar status or level of authority. As has been noted more than once before, RNs sometimes commit lateral violence against other staff members. “‘Crucial Conversations’ in the Workplace,” the second article in our leadership series, offers nurse managers a framework […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:56-05:00April 5th, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments

Downsizing with Dementia

Photo by Shawn Henning, via flickr.

By Amy M. Collins, editor

I’ve blogged before about my grandmother and her dementia, which has long since been staking a claim on her memory. A few years ago I wrote a post called “No Country for Old Women.” In it I tried to describe the feeling of helplessness that my family felt when a series of providers had failed to diagnose the cause of sudden delirium superimposed on dementia . . . a frustrating game of hot potato had ensued, with each physician passing her around to the next. It ended when a nurse finally diagnosed her with an impaction.

A similar sinking feeling strikes me as her dementia advances, and again, there seems to be no place for her to go. At her independent living center, we know she’s just barely scraping by. If it weren’t for the nurse we hired to keep an eye on her each day, her difficulty living there would be much more obvious.

Our nurse faithfully calls to let us know when my grandmother has forgotten to shower; when she’s been seen in the same clothes a few days running; when she won’t stop cleaning the break room, the distant memory of her long-standing career as a housewife stubbornly clinging to her; when she’s been found wandering the corridors at night. I think we’ve kept her there so long because everyone there loves her, she’s allowed to have […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:59-05:00March 29th, 2013|Nursing|5 Comments

AJN’s March Issue: CVD Prevention in Women, Hand Hygiene, Sexuality in Nursing Homes, More

AJN’s March issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Recent surveys show that women continue to underestimate their true risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This prompted the American Heart Association (AHA) to update its guidelines for preventing CVD in women. To make sure you’re up to date on the latest information, read “Update on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women.”

This article is open access and can earn you 2.3 continuing education (CE) credits. (The cover image to the right, a lithograph from 1830, is called A Map of the Open Country of a Woman’s Heart. For more about it, read this month’s “On the Cover.”)

Although hand hygiene is considered to be the most effective way of preventing health care–associated infections, not all health care workers adhere to the guidelines. The month’s original research article presents findings from an interventional study that showed how the introduction of gel sanitizer and informational posters improved hand hygiene at two outpatient clinics. This article is open access and can earn you 2.1 CE credits. A podcast with the author is available on our Web site, and we also feature a 1932 article on hand hygiene in our department, From the AJN Archives.

Although nurses may think of sexuality as more likely to preoccupy the young, our Sexually Speaking article, “Sexuality in Nursing Care Facilities,” points out that nursing home residents have the […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:08:12-05:00March 1st, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments

About Amy M. Collins, managing editor

AJN’s May Issue: Telephone Follow-Up After Myocardial Revascularization, Hemodynamic Monitoring, Staffing Levels, Nurses Week, More

Share this:

Like this:

Misplacing Our Focus on Quality Improvement

Share this:

Like this:

AJN’s April Issue: Sustainable Health Care Environments, Preventing Kidney Injury, Lateral Violence, Mental Health, More

Share this:

Like this:

Downsizing with Dementia

Share this:

Like this:

AJN’s March Issue: CVD Prevention in Women, Hand Hygiene, Sexuality in Nursing Homes, More

Share this:

Like this: