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What’s in the Air? Rethinking Airflow and Infection Risk in Health Care

Image generated using Google’s Nano Banana 2, 4/20/26.

For nurses, environmental infection prevention is often framed around visible conditions such as high-touch surfaces, shared equipment, and visible dirt. In my experience, airflow and ventilation are not topics that receive significant emphasis in nursing education or orientation. While this may vary by setting, many nurses are left to learn these concepts in practice rather than through formal training.

With the recent COVID-19 and measles outbreaks, there has been more focused attention placed on contaminated air as a risk to patient safety. In my work with health care teams across settings, I’ve found that while nurses are highly attuned to cleaning and disinfection practices, airflow and ventilation are often assumed to be “handled” by the facility operations staff. In reality, these systems depend heavily on how the environment is used at the bedside. Small, routine actions—like leaving a door open or introducing a fan—can unintentionally disrupt carefully designed controls.

This gap in awareness among clinical staff matters. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to report progress in reducing health care-associated infections (HAIs), these infections remain at a persistent risk for patients. Expanding the nurse’s focus on the […]

2026-04-22T12:32:28-04:00April 21st, 2026|infection control, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Beyond ‘This Is How We Do It’: Teaching Nurses to Think Critically About Practice

A nurse I was orienting asked a question that stopped me.

“Why do we have to wait for a current type and screen before ordering red blood cells, but not platelets?”

It was the kind of question that should have a clear answer. She wasn’t new to nursing, just new to our unit, which made it land differently. This wasn’t inexperience. It was a fresh perspective on a practice I had stopped questioning.

I had a general understanding. I knew that red blood cells carry the antigens most likely to trigger clinically significant antibody formation, and that ensuring compatibility before transfusion is critical. Platelets, by comparison, are less likely to require the same level of matching in routine situations. But when I tried to explain it clearly and completely, I hesitated.

My first instinct was to simplify the answer: “That’s just how we do it.” I paused before saying it out loud. Although the practice made sense to me, I had never examined it in a way that I could confidently teach, explain, or connect back to policy.

The question exposed a gap between practice, policy, and understanding. It also raised something larger: how often do we follow practices we can’t fully explain, document, or defend?

This experience highlighted a broader issue […]

2026-04-15T09:24:30-04:00April 13th, 2026|Nursing, questions of practice|0 Comments
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What’s Lurking in the Sink? Rethinking Water as an Infection Risk in Health Care

Image: Shutterstock

Nurses play a primary role in patient safety through direct care and through the environments in which care is delivered. While clinical responsibilities are well defined, the nurses’ role in promoting a health care environment that prevents health care–associated infections (HAIs) is not always clear.

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that U.S. hospitals saw meaningful declines in several major HAIs in 2024, including Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), central line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia. Despite the obvious progress, each day, approximately one in 31 hospitalized patients and one in 43 nursing home residents contract at least one HAI in association with their health care. This alarming statistic underscores the need for frontline vigilance by nurses in every clinical setting.

When the Environment Works Against Us

Infection prevention is often framed around what we can see—dirty floors and high-touch surfaces, visibly soiled equipment, and stained linens. Some of the most consequential risks in health care are not visible. One emerging area of concern is the role of health care water systems as reservoirs for pathogens. Surprisingly, it’s not dirty water that’s being scrutinized, but clean […]

2026-04-08T10:03:07-04:00April 8th, 2026|infection control, Nursing|0 Comments
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From Care to Calling: How a Nurse’s Small Act Became a Lifelong Inspiration

Often, the simplest questions lead to the greatest moments of reflection and growth. While serving on a recent panel discussion, I was asked how I knew I wanted to be a nurse? The question offered me the opportunity to reflect on the butterfly effect of one nurse’s actions on the future of a teenage girl.

A mother’s sudden illness

I was 17 years old, a junior in high school, and growing increasingly excited about my first prom. The dress was picked out, the makeup decided, and my high school sweetheart (and current husband) had already asked me to be his date. Just prior to the big day, my mother began experiencing worsening headaches and increasingly noticeable vision changes. Though it was originally written off as stress or typical age-related vision changes, an eye appointment for a new prescription quickly led to a neurology consultation. With roughly 50% of my mother’s peripheral vision already gone, scans were ordered, and a craniopharyngioma was discovered.

Suddenly, prom was the last thing on my mind as my mother was admitted to a local cancer hospital for treatment of a large (noncancerous) brain tumor. Her surgery was scheduled for the day of the big dance. Her last words before being wheeled into surgery were, “When I wake up, the first thing I want to see are pictures of how beautiful you looked at the prom.”

2026-05-04T09:48:29-04:00April 2nd, 2026|career, family experience, Nursing, nursing career, Patients|0 Comments
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How to Keep Caring Without Breaking

Recently, a nurse asked publicly how others cope with empathy fatigue.

It struck me that the question itself was brave.

Empathy fatigue (more often called compassion fatigue) is easy to mislabel. It can present as irritability, detachment, or impatience. It can look like burnout. It can feel like failure. But often, it is something quieter and more specific: the accumulation of caring deeply for a long time.

The subtle internal shift signaling empathy fatigue.

The most dangerous part of empathy fatigue isn’t exhaustion. It’s the subtle shift.

It’s the moment you feel yourself pulling back. The internal eye roll that surprises you. The thought you don’t like having. The faint edge of resentment where compassion once felt natural.

That shift is uncomfortable. But it is also a signal.

In oncology, relationships are not brief. We see patients repeatedly. We learn their children’s names. We know when scans are coming. We recognize the weight in their voices before they say anything at all. Over time, that proximity to suffering accumulates. Grief does not arrive all at once. It layers.

Empathy fatigue is not evidence that we care less. It is often evidence that we have cared continuously.

Left unnamed, however, it can harden into something else. Resentment is not dramatic; it is […]

2026-03-17T11:25:37-04:00March 17th, 2026|Nursing, nursing perspective, Oncology 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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