Electronic Health Records: Still-Evolving Tools to Help or Hinder Nurses

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/New York Times/Redux Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/New York Times/Redux

One of my earliest memories of electronic health records (EHRs) is the day I had to review a chart at another hospital in the city. As I headed over to medical records, I expected at worst a “big” chart—one of those 15-inch stacks of multiple folders from a long hospitalization. I wasn’t allowed access to their system to view the chart online, so I was escorted into a separate room, in which the printed-out chart was waiting for me.

But their electronic chart wasn’t “printer-friendly,” and the hard copy version now consisted of thousands of pages of documentation spread out over a nine-foot long table. Many […]

2016-11-21T13:01:40-05:00December 14th, 2015|digital health, Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Ebola, One Year Later: What We Learned for the Next Big Epidemic

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

Scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles budding from an infected VERO E6 cell (35,000x magnification). Credit: NIAID Scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles budding from an infected VERO E6 cell (35,000x magnification). Credit: NIAID

U.S. hospitals have not seen a case of Ebola virus disease since November 11, 2014, when Dr. Craig Spencer was discharged from Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. While the number of new infections has declined dramatically in the West African countries where the 2014–2015 epidemic began, it is virtually certain that the disease will continue to resurface.

This epidemic was by far the largest and most geographically widespread Ebola epidemic to date, with approximately 28,000 cases (suspected, probable, or confirmed) and more than 11,000 deaths in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, the three hardest-hit countries. The seven other countries affected account for a combined total of 34 confirmed (and two probable) cases and 15 deaths.

According to a recent WHO report, these numbers include (through March of this year) 815 confirmed or probable cases among health care workers, more than half of whom were nurses or nurses’ aides. (Doctors and medical students made up about 12% […]

2016-11-21T13:01:48-05:00November 6th, 2015|healthcare social media, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|11 Comments
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Nursing and Social Media’s Limits: Real Change Requires Moving Beyond Hashtags and Selfies

Karen Roush, PhD, RN, is an assistant professor of nursing at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, and founder of the Scholar’s Voice, which works to strengthen the voice of nursing through writing mentorship for nurses.

by rosmary/via Flickr by rosmary/via Flickr

The recent #ShowMeYourStethoscope media campaign has been hailed as a powerful demonstration of the unified voice of nurses and what it can accomplish.

In case you’re not familiar with the incident that led to the outrage–after a Miss America contestant, Kelley Johnson (Miss Colorado), a registered nurse, delivered a monologue about her work for the talent portion of the yearly pageant while dressed in scrubs and wearing her stethoscope, hosts of the television show The View derided her, with one asking why she had on a “doctor’s stethoscope.”

There was soon a vigorous backlash across social media as nurses posted, blogged, and tweeted photos of themselves with stethoscopes, often adding moving descriptions of the situations where they use them or witty comments illustrating the absurdity of the hosts’ remarks.

I found it a heartening response to disrespect and ignorance. Nurses felt empowered and celebrated the opportunity to show the public what nursing is really about.

But has anything really changed? Yes, The View lost some sponsors and was forced to air an apology (albeit unconvincing […]

2016-11-21T13:01:57-05:00October 2nd, 2015|digital health, healthcare social media, Nursing, nursing perspective|8 Comments
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Reflective Writing as a Crucial Counterweight to Clinical Experience

By Amanda Anderson, a critical care nurse and graduate student in New York City currently doing a graduate placement at AJN.

Kevin V. Pxl/Flickr Kevin V. Pxl/Flickr

When I first started working as a nurse, I didn’t write much. My shifts, twelve hours of chaos, weren’t stories to be told, just days to survive. I wrote only when, after a traumatic event surrounding a patient’s death, I felt like I didn’t know who I could talk to about it. I had always written in a journal, but I hadn’t really thought of writing as a tool for healing—I just knew that I felt better after banging on the keyboard a bit.

Other than this single instance, I didn’t make writing a regular practice during my first year of nursing—a choice I still regret. I covet all of those forgotten lessons, missed descriptors, and stories that I might use in my writing now, but mostly, I wish I had known that moving my pen on a piece of paper might’ve helped me heal from the consistent stress of my new work.

A few years ago, by then a relatively experienced ICU nurse as well as a graduate student, I took a class called, “Writing, Communication, & Healing.” Taught by a poet and health care journalist, Joy Jacobson, it came at a time when I needed to learn how to […]

2016-11-21T13:01:58-05:00September 25th, 2015|career, healthcare social media, narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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A Tech-Savvy Nurse’s Initial Take on Uses for the Apple Watch

Megen Duffy, RN, BSN, CEN, is currently working in hospice case management and writes AJN‘s iNurse column, which focuses on technology and nursing.

AppleWatchMegenPhotoBPMI’ve had my Apple Watch for several months now. I ordered it at 12:01 the morning they went on sale, and it arrived the Saturday after its Friday release. I was fairly certain I’d return it or sell it for a profit, but I still have it and keep finding new uses for it. I also have ideas for how it could be handy for a variety of fitness and health care scenarios.

Health tracking. Even at this early stage, though, patients and their families are using Apple Watches to track and enhance their health. The Watch tracks your heartbeat—not every second, but often enough that a useful bank of data results. Rumors say that a mystery port on the back of the watch will allow SpO2 tracking soon. I have already busted out my phone to show my cardiologist my heart rate trends, and it saved me from wearing a Holter monitor. That kind of thing is exciting!

Fitness wearables (e.g., Fitbit) and smart watches (e.g., Pebble) have been around for a few years, with sharply increasing popularity. The (often) colored plastic bands people wear around their wrists are the kind of wearable I mean. Pedometers (included in the wearables category) also […]

2016-11-21T13:02:11-05:00August 5th, 2015|digital health, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|2 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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