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Genomics, Technology, and Nursing: A “Focus on the Whole Person”

By Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, editor-in-chief emeritus. Mason often writes for this blog about policy and research issues.

Last week, I attended the annual conference of CANS, the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science, the “research-facilitation arm” of the American Academy of Nursing. The title of the conference was “Technology, Genetics and Beyond: Research Methodologies of the Future.”

‘Genomics’ vs. ‘genetics.’ I’m not a genomics researcher but I found the sessions enlightening in two ways. First, I admit to struggling with the terminology (and jargon) of the field. I was reminded today that the correct term for the field is “genomics,” since “genetics” refers to the study of single genes and thus limits the focus of study mostly to rare diseases. Genomics looks at associations among genes in the whole person—a shift in perspective that was enabled by the mapping of the human genome.

Targeted interventions. The second enlightenment came from keynote speaker and senior nurse researcher Christine Miaskowski, a dean and a professor of physiological nursing at the University of California at San Francisco School of Nursing. She noted that this shift to a focus on the whole person is what makes nurses and nursing research […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:21:36-05:00October 21st, 2009|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

TCAB: What’s Your Hospital Doing to Improve Care?

By Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, AJN Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

What makes a “good hospital”? A patient might have the best surgeon in the world; but as any nurse will tell you, that patient will die unless the surgeon has a top-notch nursing staff to ensure that the patient is well prepared for the surgery and well supported during the recovery period. Too many hospitals have lost their understanding of what’s essential to ensure great clinical and financial outcomes. In such hospitals, nurses aren’t included in decision making, have little local authority, are penalized for identifying factors that lead to poor care, and can’t claim excellent team relationships.

The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program has helped to identify the factors that lead to excellence in nursing care, granting Magnet status to hospitals that provide such excellence. Now an initiative known as Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB) has provided the framework and tools for empowering bedside nurses to become agents for change. TCAB nurses work with other health care team members to improve care processes and effectiveness, focusing on four areas: the safety and reliability of care, teamwork and job satisfaction, patient and family satisfaction, and “value-added care.” (Increasing the amount of time […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:21:37-05:00October 20th, 2009|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

The eICU: Big Brother or Team Member?

By Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN

There is an intriguing new technology available to hospital ICUs. It’s called an eICU. At Alegent Health in Omaha, Nebraska, the “software feeds real time data for roughly 100 patients, including vital signs, laboratory tests, cultures, and pharmacy data,” to nurses and a doctor monitoring the eICU from off site. Using the data, the software sets off alerts that are noted by the eICU staff and passed on to the bedside staff. The bedside clinicians have said that the extra help has allowed them to focus on bedside care.

About two years into its use, an interesting side benefit of this remote monitoring system was noted by the hospital’s director of infection control. She realized that the eICU allowed her to monitor and promote compliance to practice bundles as well as to compile data to promote better antimicrobial measures.

The article reports that the staff initially felt a bit concerned about being watched by “big brother.” However, the hospital promoted the idea of the eICU as a “part of the team” instead of an intrusion, an approach that appears to have been successful.

As a nurse who works to improve compliance to best practices that reduce hospital-acquired conditions, particularly bloodstream infections, I feel this presents an amazing opportunity to promote patient safety. For example, when I perform hospital audits, I see poor compliance to hand washing and the cleansing of IV access ports. These two practices are proven to help decrease the spread of […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:21:39-05:00October 19th, 2009|career, nursing perspective|4 Comments

Mid-October Rainy Thursday Web Roundup

By Jacob Molyneux, blog editor/senior editor

The nursosphere is thriving and Change of Shift, the always interesting compendium of what’s new on nursing blogs, is up over at Emergiblog.

The health care reform process creeps slowly but surely toward an end someone somewhere can surely envision. One crucial question many are still asking is whether insurance companies might serve consumers a bit more readily and agreeably if they were forced to face a little competition from a public option. After all, isn’t competition supposed to be a good thing?

Most experts don’t expect the H1N1 vaccine to pose any more danger than the seasonal flu vaccine; even so, many Americans (and nurses commenting here, or taking our poll about the mandatory vaccine) continue to be wary, prompting public health officials to engage in especially aggressive surveillance measures in order to quickly detect any possible negative reactions to the vaccine: “Government Keeps Close Eye on Swine Flu Vaccine.”

AJN clinical editor Christine Moffa posted here a while back about how meditation might help cranky or exhausted or overworked nurses stay focused on what matters during the workday. Today the NY Times has a related piece on “doctor burnout” and meditation.

The role of social media in health care is constantly evolving as we all find our way. Its use by hospital workers is at issue in a recent post at Running a Hospital, about one hospital’s decision to ban social media from all its computers. And here’s something else on this: blogger Not Nurse Ratched wonders if social media policies in […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:21:43-05:00October 15th, 2009|health care policy, nursing perspective|1 Comment

October Poem: An Emergency Nurse’s “Purgatory”—and Sanctuary

In “Purgatory,” poet and ED nurse Stacy R. Nigliazzo writes about the sick and the stranded as they wait their turns at a hospital Emergency entrance—and the “nurse behind the bulletproof glass” who summons each in turn, her raw voice “calling sanctuary.” Read the poem here; listen to the poet’s reading here.

If this piques your curiosity, take a look at previous issues (Art of Nursing is always free; you might need to access page 2 or 3 of an issue’s table of contents to find it). To hear more poems read by their authors, click here. Interested in submitting your own work to Art of Nursing? Read this blog post for details. Guidelines can be found here; and if you still have questions, feel free to write to the Art of Nursing coordinator (me) at sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com.

Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:21:45-05:00October 14th, 2009|nursing perspective|0 Comments

Genomics, Technology, and Nursing: A “Focus on the Whole Person”

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TCAB: What’s Your Hospital Doing to Improve Care?

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The eICU: Big Brother or Team Member?

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Mid-October Rainy Thursday Web Roundup

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October Poem: An Emergency Nurse’s “Purgatory”—and Sanctuary

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