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

AJN in December: Inside an Ebola Unit, Acupressure, Early Mobility, EHRs, More

AJN1215.Cover.Online On this month’s cover, nurse Elie Kasindi Kabululu cares for a patient at Centre Médical Evangélique in Nyankunde, Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. Originally, this location served a population of 150,000 and also housed a nursing school; but in 2002, during war in the region, the facility was attacked. About 1,000 people were killed—including patients and staff—and the center was looted and destroyed.

Providing medical assistance in the world’s war-torn and neediest areas is commonplace for health care providers like Kabululu, just as it is for humanitarian organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which works in 70 countries worldwide—nearly half of these in Africa. Shortly after the recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, MSF sent close to 300 international workers to help combat this public health emergency. To read one nurse’s experience traveling to Liberia for MSF to work in a treatment center, see “Inside an Ebola Treatment Unit: A Nurse’s Report.”

Some other articles of note in the December issue:

Original Research: “Implementation of an Early Mobility Program in an ICU.” This article, from our Cultivating Quality column, recounts how the effects of an early mobilization program delivered to critically ill patients at a community hospital by an independent ICU mobility team contributed to fewer delirium days and improvements in patient outcomes, sedation levels, and functional status.

CE Feature: “Incorporating Acupressure into Nursing Practice.” The effects of acupressure can’t always be explained in terms of Western anatomical […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:42-05:00November 30th, 2015|infectious diseases|0 Comments

Preventing Newborn Falls

Photo by Joseph Sacchetti.

An acquaintance of mine once admitted to dropping her newborn baby while feeding her in the middle of the night. At the time I inwardly scoffed—how can someone be that tired, I thought judgmentally. Fast-forward to a few years later when I can now speak as a new mother—and to being that tired.

Sleep deprivation is no joke. And it doesn’t necessarily begin when the baby is born. The last few months of pregnancy and the discomfort that comes with it make for difficult sleep preceding the birth.

Many maternity units now promote “rooming in,” where a newborn baby stays in the mother’s room rather than with the nurses in the nursery. This makes newborn fall prevention an important issue. Take poor sleep in the last months of pregnancy and the physical and mental exhaustion of labor and add pain and limited mobility from the birth itself, especially a C-section birth; large rails on hospital beds making the transfer of one’s baby from bassinet to the mother’s bed difficult; and possible pain meds for mom, and the recipe could spell disaster.

In my case, with an emergency C-section and limited mobility, I found it very hard to pick my baby up from his bassinet and bring him into my hospital bed for a feeding. Luckily my husband […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:48-05:00November 4th, 2015|Nursing, patient engagement|0 Comments

AJN in November: New Cancer Survivorship Series, Holistic Nursing, Safe Opioid Use, More

On this month’s cover, a nurse provides care to a patient at Clearview Cancer Institute in Huntsville, Alabama. The photo was chosen as the third-place winner of AJN’s 2015 Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work contest. Photographer Kim Swift shot the photo while shadowing her sister, a nurse, for a day. Swift sought to capture what she calls “the trust factor” between patients and nurses. She found a prime example of that relationship when she noticed the way one patient looked at her nurse as he explained an aspect of her cancer treatment.

To read the first in a series of AJN articles on cancer survivorship from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, see “Adverse Late and Long-Term Treatment Effects in Adult Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Survivors.” This article—the first of several on cancer survivorship—summarizes the identification, evaluation, and management of potential treatment-related effects in adult survivors of hematopoietic stem cell transplants, with special focus on cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Some other articles of note in the November issue:

CE Feature: “Imagery for Self-Healing and Integrative Nursing Practice.” Research suggests that that the use of imagery can help reduce patients’ pain and anxiety and improve their quality of life and outlook on their illness. The second article in a five-part series on holistic nursing describes how imagery can be used to encourage patients’ healing process and […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:49-05:00October 30th, 2015|Nursing|1 Comment

AJN in October: Ablation for A-Fib, Holistic Nursing, 50 Years of NPs, Care Coordination, More

This month’s cover celebrates AJN’s 115th anniversary with a collage of archival photographs and past covers. The images are intended to reflect the varied roles and responsibilities of nurses past and present, as well as to commemorate AJN‘s chronicling of nursing through the decades.

In this issue, we also celebrate another nursing milestone, the 50th anniversary of the NP, with a timeline (to view, click the PDF link at the landing page) that illustrates and recaps the significant progress made by this type of advanced practice nurse.

To read more about what has changed—and what hasn’t—for AJN and its readers after more than a century in print, see this month’s editorial, “Still the One: 115 and Going Strong.”

Some other articles of note in the October issue:

CE feature: “Integrative Care: The Evolving Landscape in American Hospitals.” As the use of complementary and alternative medicine has surged in popularity in the United States, many hospitals have begun integrating complementary services and therapies to augment conventional medical care. This first article in a five-part series on holistic nursing provides an overview of some of the integrative care initiatives being introduced in U.S. hospitals and reports on findings from a survey of nursing leaders at hospitals that have implemented such programs.

CE feature: “Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation.” This treatment for the most […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:58-05:00September 30th, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments

AJN in September: Pain Management in Opioid Use Disorder, STIs in the U.S., Teaching Vs. Unit Needs

On this month’s cover, perianesthesia nurse Carolyn Benigno helps prepare a young patient for surgery at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. The photo, the first-place winner of AJN’s 2015 Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work photo contest, shows Benigno practicing “Caring through Play.” The art of working at a pediatric hospital, she says, is “learning how to play with children so that part of your nursing care is play.” Such play can both distract a child in the moment and help the child cope with the disorienting experience of hospitalization.

For another piece on how nurses try to make hospitalization less stressful for children, see this month’s Cultivating Quality article, “Improving Pediatric Temperature Measurement in the ED.”

Some other articles of note in the September issue:

CE Feature: “Acute Pain Management for Inpatients with Opioid Use Disorder.” Inpatients diagnosed with opioid use disorder (OUD) commonly experience acute pain during hospitalization and may require opioids for pain management. But misconceptions about opioids and negative attitudes toward patients with OUD may lead to undermedication, unrelieved pain, and unnecessary suffering. This article reviews the current relevant literature and dispels common myths about opioids and OUD. […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:02-05:00September 2nd, 2015|career, Ethics, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment

About Amy M. Collins, managing editor

AJN in December: Inside an Ebola Unit, Acupressure, Early Mobility, EHRs, More

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Preventing Newborn Falls

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AJN in November: New Cancer Survivorship Series, Holistic Nursing, Safe Opioid Use, More

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AJN in October: Ablation for A-Fib, Holistic Nursing, 50 Years of NPs, Care Coordination, More

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AJN in September: Pain Management in Opioid Use Disorder, STIs in the U.S., Teaching Vs. Unit Needs

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