The Latest From a Persistent Campaign to Increase the Accuracy and Usefulness of Health News Reporting

Here at AJN we’ve always been inspired by the work of Gary Schwitzer, whose Web site Health News Review has grown increasingly influential in its role as a watchdog of the accuracy of health news reporting. Schwitzer has recently been blogging from the “Selling Sickness” conference in Amsterdam. Below is a short video interview he shot with the Australian physician Dr. Peter Mansfield, who runs an organization called Healthy Skepticism—and who compares “industry-occupied medicine” to a communist state in its power to control information and drown out dissenting voices. Whether you’re a journalist, a provider, or a potential patient, Schwitzer’s ongoing analysis of health care news provides a model for understanding and filtering the flood of information we get about medications, testing, and various conditions.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ_ER2xSzG0]

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2016-11-21T13:15:17-05:00October 12th, 2010|healthcare social media, Nursing|0 Comments
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Why Didn’t Physicians Know What Nurses Know?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

A recent post on our blog highlighted the experience of AJN’s associate editor Amy Collins in trying to get someone to diagnose the underlying reason for acute confusion in her grandmother. Over a two-week period, Amy’s grandmother was seen by various private and ED physicians, none of whom seemed to have an adequate diagnosis or a suggestion for treatment. Finally, nurses suggested that a urinary tract infection (UTI), fecal impaction, or some other infection might be a factor. It was a fecal impaction and yet none of the five physicians who previously evaluated Amy’s grandmother had thought about or assessed for it.

What the nurses said. Amy’s post generated many comments, both on the blog and on our Facebook page. What was interesting to me was how many nurses knew to first check for a UTI, electrolyte disturbance, or fecal impaction as a reason for confusion. Here are a few samples:

“Though not conclusive, in every case I have seen a change in cognition or behavior it was either a UTI or fecal impaction. I work in home health as a CNA and I am a nursing student.”

“The first thing I think to check is infection (UTI) with elderly, confused patients.”

“I’m a senior nursing student…and this material is on our exam that we are taking Friday. With acute confusion, always check for UTI and constipation.”

“Possible UTI. Possible dehydration &/or  constipation. Poor nutrition. All can (and do) manifest as “altered mental status.” Think I’d start with […]

2016-11-21T13:15:35-05:00September 27th, 2010|healthcare social media, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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I Simulate, Therefore I Am…

One after another, the student nurses pump the hand sanitizer dispenser and approach the bedside. They turn the patient’s name band to check his birth date and full name and say, in that singsong manner typical of young adults, “Good morning, Mr. Johnson, I’m your nurse today. How are you feeling?” The patient is a manikin called SimMan, short for simulation man, and I’m his voice. Hidden behind a one-way mirror, I also control SimMan’s physiological responses to the students’ interventions. My goal is to replicate the essential aspects of a clinical situation in order to prepare the students to encounter them in a living patient.

That’s the start of the September Reflections essay, written by a nursing instructor who experiences a curious role reversal as he plays the patient in a simulation exercise. Read the rest of it here, and let us know what you think.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

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2016-11-21T13:15:42-05:00September 16th, 2010|digital health, students, Technology|0 Comments
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Social Media and Nurses — Does Betty White Have a Point?

50 Social Media Icons/Ivan Walsh, via Flickr

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

I’ve been extremely busy and have had trouble finding time to write a post for this blog. And it’s not enough just to write a post—we’ve got to think about what should go on Facebook and what should be Tweeted, whether we should do a mention in the eNewsletter and if a topic deserves a spot on AJN’s home page. All this communication takes time.

When she hosted Saturday Night Live, the inimitable Betty White acknowledged all the fans on Facebook who were the driving force behind the campaign to have her become the host. She confessed she didn’t know what Facebook was, and said, “Now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it seems like a huge waste of time.”

Facebook and Twitter sort of remind me of the Valentine’s Day card exchange in grammar school—everyone bought boxes of 100 cards (actually, more like small, cheap postcards) so you could give them out and, hopefully, get as many in return. It was about the number of cards you could collect—even if they were from classmates you didn’t care about or even disliked. You felt good if you had lots of cards and […]

2016-11-21T13:16:12-05:00August 9th, 2010|career, healthcare social media, nursing perspective|5 Comments
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Supporting Nurse Practitioners as ‘Priority Primary Care Practitioners’

By Susan McBride, PhD, RN, professor at Texas Tech University Health Science Center School of Nursing

It’s important for nurses to understand the Medicare and Medicaid incentives to implement electronic health records (EMRs) and to move to their “meaningful use,” as well as the purpose of the Regional Extension Centers created to support nurse practitioners and other “priority primary care providers” in the implementation process.

Dr. Mari Tietze, John Delaney, and I are fortunate to be involved in two of the Regional Extension Centers in Texas. We believe that nursing professionals have many contributions to make in the evolving electronic highway in the U.S. We will blog later about our roles as nursing informaticists in the Regional Extension Center program.

What are ‘Regional Extension Centers’? Under the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) Health Information Technology Initiative to support getting providers to meaningful use on electronic health records, the ONC has established Regional Extension Centers. There are 60 Regional Extension Centers that will furnish assistance to providers in specific geographic services areas covering virtually all of the U.S. A total of $643 million is devoted to these centers.

The purpose of the Regional Extension Centers is to support priority primary care practitioners in priority settings to implement and use EMRs according to the meaningful use requirements outlined in our previous post (below is a screenshot illustrating one example of how an EMR might align with meaningful use requirements; click image to enlarge). The goal of the program is to provide federally subsidized outreach and support […]

2016-11-21T13:16:22-05:00July 29th, 2010|digital health, Nursing|1 Comment
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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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