About Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)

Editor-in-chief, (emerita), AJN

Neither Snow, Sleet, Hail, nor Major Blizzard: Business as Usual for Nurses

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

ShawnKennedyThe snowbanks in the New York area are already starting to melt, but it’s worth noting that this past weekend’s massive storm was business as usual for nurses. The New York Daily News carried a story earlier this week of a practical nurse who got a babysitter for her daughter and then walked through the height of a recent blizzard to get to her job at a nursing home.

Chantelle Diabate, who works at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale, New York, walked a mile in the snow and wind to get to work. She has been working there for six months as an LPN and said she knew they’d need her because many staff would be unable to get there. She stayed through the weekend.

by doortoriver, via Flickr by doortoriver, via Flickr

AJN’s publisher, Anne Woods, works every Saturday as a cardiothoracic NP in a hospital near Philadelphia. With the imminent arrival of the storm on Friday afternoon, Woods went to the hospital that afternoon and spent the next 36 hours there […]

2016-11-21T13:01:31-05:00January 28th, 2016|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, Patients|0 Comments
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One Nursing Wish for the New Year

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

ShawnKennedyIf there’s one universal complaint by nurses, it’s that there aren’t enough of them on a shift to provide the care their patients need. We have a lot of data linking nurse staffing to patient outcomes and revealing the deleterious effects of missed care because of insufficient staffing. Yet, according to many hospital nurses I’ve spoken with, they still find themselves stretched to the breaking point by high patient acuity, rapid patient turnover, and increasing documentation requirements.

These nurses see no end in sight to this situation as hospitals argue that they have insufficient reimbursements and revenues to increase staffing. Ironically, as hospitals invest in pricey, cutting-edge new technologies that haven’t been shown to improve patient outcomes, the evidence about nurse staffing continues to be ignored.

In November, the ANA released a white paper, “Optimal Nurse Staffing to Improve Quality of Care and Patient Outcomes.” The paper summarizes and updates the research on staffing and outcomes, linking staffing to Medicare initiatives to reduce costs, adverse events, and readmissions. The report notes:

“Existing nurse staffing systems are often antiquated and inflexible. Greater benefit can be derived from staffing models that consider the number of nurses and/or the nurse-to-patient ratios and can be adjusted to account for unit and shift level factors. Factors that influence nurse staffing […]

2016-11-21T13:01:37-05:00January 4th, 2016|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Evening Shift, Christmas Eve: A Nursing Memory

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

One of my fondest memories of working Christmas Eve was after an evening shift at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. This was at the “old Bellevue Hospital,” when it still occupied a series of red brick buildings along the East River.

I had finished my evening shift in the ER, which was one of the busiest in the nation. It had been a crazy–busy night and I was too wired to just go home and sleep, so I decided to stop in the chapel for midnight mass. I was surprised to see my friend Helen there, since she was Jewish. I knew Helen always volunteered to work over the Christmas holiday so those who celebrated could be with their families, but I didn’t know that after work she’d go to the chapel to listen to the Christmas music, which apparently she loved.

We sat together, enjoying the quiet, calm pace of the service and the music. Helen knew all the words and sang along; she had a beautiful voice. Staff, visitors, and some patients (wearing the classic blue-and-white-striped Bellevue bathrobes—like draw sheets, these were hard to come by) shuffled in and out during the hour, clinicians sometimes leaving hurriedly after being summoned by a beeper.

Illustration for "A Change of Heart," AJN, December, 2014, by Lisa Dietrich for AJN. Illustration for “A Change of Heart,” AJN, December, 2014, by Lisa Dietrich

On the way out […]

2016-11-21T13:01:39-05:00December 23rd, 2015|career, narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective|7 Comments
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Has the Future of Nursing Report Made a Difference?

Action Coalition logoBy Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week, I went to Washington, DC, for a meeting convened to hear whether implementation of recommendations from the Institute of Medicine’s (now renamed the National Academy of Medicine, NAM) 2010 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, had indeed made a difference for nurses and the nursing profession.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), which sponsored the report, had also provided support to AARP’s Center to Champion Nursing in America to coordinate a “campaign for action” and manage the work of 51 state action coalitions. Five years later, RWJF asked the National Academy of Medicine to review and report on its progress.

In brief, the evaluation committee said that things were improving for nursing and that nursing needs to focus on three major themes:

  • communicating and collaborating with groups beyond nursing
  • improving diversity
  • getting better data

[…]

2016-11-21T13:01:39-05:00December 17th, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|5 Comments
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Practical Steps for Nurses to Reduce Prescription Opioid Diversion

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

“Opioids diverted from friends and family members who have legitimate prescriptions are a major source of abused prescription opioids.”

More than 800 lbs. of drugs have been collected in Lycoming County, PA, since drug collection boxes were placed in law enforcement agencies over a year ago, allowing residents to safely dispose of unwanted drugs. Here the drugs are separated from their containers before incineration. Photo courtesy of Karen Vibert-Kennedy / Williamsport Sun-Gazette. More than 800 lbs. of drugs have been collected in Lycoming County, PA, since collection boxes were placed in law enforcement agencies over a year ago, allowing residents to safely dispose of unwanted drugs. Here the drugs are separated from their containers before incineration. Photo courtesy of Karen Vibert-Kennedy / Williamsport Sun-Gazette.

Amid recent reports from the CDC drawing attention to a prescription painkiller and heroin overdose epidemic, last week President Obama announced an initiative to address both prescription drug and heroin abuse in the United States. In […]

2016-11-21T13:01:50-05:00October 28th, 2015|Nursing, pain management, Patients|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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