Diane Szulecki, editor, Author at Off the Charts

A Paradigm Shift in Obesity Care: Recommended Reading in AJN’s June Issue

The June issue of AJN is now live.

Obesity, which is depicted on the June cover, has steadily increased in prevalence in the United States over the past three decades. This month’s AJN Reports, “Weight Loss Medications: Stigma and Shortages,” takes a close look at the multifaceted implications of new medications to treat obesity. (Also see editor-in-chief Carl Kirton’s editorial, “A Paradigm Shift in Obesity Care.”)

“Nursing Care for Patients After Urostomy Surgery” details pre- and postoperative interventions for nurses who encounter patients undergoing urostomy surgery. It also includes a tear sheet that nurses can use to provide patients with the basic information and skills they need for effective self-care. (CE credit available)

Can physical activity help alleviate nurse burnout? This month’s Original Research article, “Addressing Nurse Burnout: The Relationship Between Burnout and Physical Activity” describes a cross-sectional study that sought to determine whether a correlation exists between self-reported physical activity levels and nurses’ perception of burnout in a sample of hospital RNs.

In “Improving Compliance with a Nurse-Driven Protocol for Unfractionated Heparin Infusions in Patients with Venous Thromboembolism,” the authors discuss a QI initiative to reduce patient safety events related […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2024-05-28T15:00:03-04:00May 28th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments

Nurses’ Duty to Care: Recommended Reading in AJN’s May Issue

The May issue of AJN is now live.

“If nurses are expected to have a strong sense of duty to care and to report to work even in disaster situations, then it’s essential to understand what factors influence that sense, in order to foster and sustain a workforce ready to do so,” write the authors of this month’s Original Research article, “Exploring U.S. Nurses’ Perceived Duty to Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Read the study here.

“The Mountain Model for Evidence-Based Practice Quality Improvement Initiatives” introduces a conceptual model that merges evidence-based practice and quality improvement principles into a unified framework with the goal of disseminating and sustaining EBPQI projects across health care. (CE credit available)

“Clinical Inquiry and Problem Identification,” the second article in our new Evidence-Based Decision-Making series, discusses optimizing clinical inquiry, using data to describe a clinical problem, and strategically developing a focused clinical question. A commentary on navigating clinical questions accompanies the article.

“Improving Medication Management for Inpatients with a Secondary Diagnosis of Parkinson Disease” describes how a nurse-led multidisciplinary team implemented a quality improvement project to identify patients with Parkinson disease and customize medication management in […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2024-04-29T10:19:38-04:00April 29th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments

Improving Patient Throughput: Recommended Reading in AJN’s April Issue

The April issue of AJN is now live.

How can an acuity-adaptable model improve patient throughput and care? This month’s Original Research article, “Breaking Through the Bottleneck: Acuity Adaptability in Noncritical Trauma Care,” evaluates the implementation of such a model on a 20-bed noncritical trauma unit, examining the pre- and postimplementation metrics for throughput efficiency, resource utilization, and nursing quality indicators. (CE credit available)

Read “The Occupational and Environmental Hazards of Uncovered Toilets” to learn about the potential exposure risks associated with toilet plume aerosols—and how nurses can address these risks.

Crowdsourced registries have been used to quickly gather information, especially during emerging public health concerns. In “Developing Crowdsourced Clinical Registry Studies,” the authors describe the process of planning, developing, executing, and evaluating the crowdsourced COVID-19 and Invasive Cryptococcal Disease Registry, and highlight the use of a project management approach to successfully implement the resulting study. […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2024-03-28T11:11:15-04:00March 25th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments

Disaster Care, Brain Drain, More: Recommended Reading in AJN’s March Issue

The March issue of AJN is now live.

“Nurses play a critical role in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery,” says Linda M. MacIntyre, PhD, RN, PHN, FAAN, chief nurse of the American Red Cross (see On the Cover). Two articles in this month’s issue address disaster care:

“Enhancing Disaster Management Preparedness Through Simulation,” which describes a mock disaster drill for nursing students in which volunteers acted as earthquake victims and local emergency medical personnel accepted patient handoff from the students.
“Palliating Serious Illness During Disasters and Public Health Emergencies,” which posits that all nurses must be better prepared to provide equitable palliative care—particularly as climate change–related disasters become more common.

Brain drain is increasing in health care. “Original Research: Nurses’ Attitudes Toward Brain Drain and the Associated Factors” explores the attitudes of Turkish nurses, nurse academics, and nursing students toward this problem in the nursing profession.

In this month’s CE article, “Beyond PICO—A New Question Simplifies the Search for Evidence,” the authors present the framework for an alternative to the PICO question—PPCO, or problem, population, change, outcome—that provides a universal approach to question development for evidence-based practice QI initiatives and for all nursing issues that need addressing.

Read

Diane Szulecki, editor2024-02-26T09:29:37-05:00February 26th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments

Nurses’ Experiences on Staffing Committees: Recommended Reading in AJN’s February Issue

The February issue of AJN is now live.

“Original Research: A Real ‘Voice’ or ‘Lip Service’? Experiences of Staff Nurses Who Have Served on Staffing Committees,” explores nurses’ perspectives on staffing committee participation—including how they perceive their committee’s effectiveness, and how these committees can benefit patients, nurses, and organizations.

In this month’s CE article, “Our Journey to Pass a Surgical Plume Evacuation Law,” the authors describe their experience leading a grassroots coalition to address surgical plume evacuation in Illinois, and outline strategies nurses can apply to their own advocacy efforts.

New series! “Cultivating an Evidence-Based Decision-Making Mindset,” the first article in a new series on how to teach and facilitate learning about evidence-based practice and quality improvement, offers educators the content and tools needed to prepare nurses to be evidence-based decision-makers.

Read “Improving the Timing of Acute Care Insulin Delivery” to learn about an initiative to reduce both time to insulin delivery and percentage of bedtime insulin doses withheld.

See also the extensive health care news sections, the Journal Watch and Drug Watch sections, an editorial on Black nurses’ contributions to health care, a Viewpoint column on empowering NPs to […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2024-01-25T13:11:25-05:00January 25th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments

About Diane Szulecki, editor

A Paradigm Shift in Obesity Care: Recommended Reading in AJN’s June Issue

The June issue of AJN is now live.

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Nurses’ Duty to Care: Recommended Reading in AJN’s May Issue

The May issue of AJN is now live.

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Improving Patient Throughput: Recommended Reading in AJN’s April Issue

The April issue of AJN is now live.

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Disaster Care, Brain Drain, More: Recommended Reading in AJN’s March Issue

The March issue of AJN is now live.

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Nurses’ Experiences on Staffing Committees: Recommended Reading in AJN’s February Issue

The February issue of AJN is now live.

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