Nurses spend more time with patients than most other types of providers and have unique insight into patient care and the the healthcare system.

Blogging: As Many Voices as There Are Nurses

By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

Blogging - What Jolly Fun/Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, via Flickr Creative Commons Blogging – What Jolly Fun/Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, via Flickr Creative Commons

A recent check reveals that a good percentage of the blogs on our nursing blogs list have been relatively active over the past few months. A few have been less so. I didn’t see any posts about the ice-bucket challenge, and that’s okay. Here are a few recent and semirecent posts by nurses that might interest readers of this blog:

Hospice nursing. At Hospice Diary, a post from a few weeks back is called “Dying with Your Boots On.” An excerpt:

As I drove down a switch-back gravel drive in the middle of nowhere, I pulled into a driveway and there in a sun-warmed grassy yard sitting perfectly still on a garden swing among buzzing bees and newly bloomed flowers was a fellow in a crisp white shirt, a matching white cowboy hat, black leather boots and a crooked smile.  I stepped out of my car and told him for a moment I thought he was the garden scarecrow, until he tipped his hat.

Nurse-midwifery. A post on At Your Cervix: Tales of a New […]

2016-11-21T13:04:03-05:00August 20th, 2014|healthcare social media, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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The Gaza Conflict, Through the Lens of Nursing

By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

In 2005, AJN published an article looking at the experiences of nurses in Israel and in the Palestinian territories (free until September 15; choose ‘full text’ or ‘PDF’ in upper-right of the article landing page). Here’s an excerpt:

” [N]urses in the region have many of the same problems American nurses have: disparate educational levels, struggles for professional recognition and workplace representation. The nurses I met came into the profession for diverse reasons and are working in a remarkable variety of settings, carrying on in the face of political, professional, economic, military, and personal difficulties. Yet I was amazed at the things these nurses have in common with each other—and with us. As I listened to them describe their motivations and aspirations and watched them work, the seemingly impenetrable barrier created by the ongoing military and political conflict melted away.”

Photos and captions from 2005 article about Palestinian and Israeli nurse. Courtesy of Constance Romilly. Photos and captions from 2005 AJN article. Courtesy of Constance Romilly. Click to expand image.

The current conflict between Israel and those living in the Palestinian territories is another chapter in a long story. Our focus at AJN is not on the politics of the situation or the rhetoric of […]

2016-11-21T13:04:05-05:00August 13th, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Some Essential AJN Resources on Care of Older Adults, Family Caregivers, More

800px-Woman-typing-on-laptopBy Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

August is one of my favorite months. Many people take time off, so the commute into AJN‘s Manhattan office is fairly easy. People’s pace seems to be a little bit slower; there seems to be less immediacy around responses to email. It’s a good time to catch up on reading manuscripts and other work I’ve had piled up.

If you’ve gone through your beach reading, here are a few useful collections on perennially important topics from our back pages:

If you’re just getting started in a nursing career, you might want to read a three-part series of articles, “Protecting Your License,” written by AJN contributing editor Edie Brous, who is a nurse and an attorney and writes on legal matters for the journal. Her series describes common myths about licensure and what steps to take to protect yourself if you are sued or brought up on charges by your state board of nursing. […]

2016-11-21T13:04:07-05:00August 11th, 2014|infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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How a Busy Hospital Reduced Its Rate of Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers to Zero

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

A skin lesion monitoring form accompanies a patient. Photo courtesy of NHCH. A skin lesion monitoring form accompanies a patient. Photo courtesy of NHCH.

In 2009, when one of the world’s largest cardiac care hospitals experienced a spike in the number of surgeries performed and a corresponding rise in hospital-acquired pressure ulcers, many people were concerned. The hospital—Narayana Hrudayalaya Cardiac Hospital (NHCH) in Bangalore, India—soon initiated a program to address the problem, and nursing superintendent Rohini Paul was tasked with designing and implementing effective preventive strategies. In this month’s CE feature, “Sustaining Pressure Ulcer Best Practices in a High-Volume Cardiac Care Environment,” Paul and colleagues describe what happened next. Here’s a brief overview.

Baseline data showed that, over the five-month observation period, an average of 6% of all adult and pediatric surgical patients experienced a pressure ulcer while recovering in the NHCH intensive therapy unit (ITU). Phase 1 implementation efforts, which began in January 2010, focused on four areas: raising awareness, increasing education, improving documentation and communication, and implementing various preventive practices. Phase 2 implementation efforts, which began the following month, focused on changing operating room practices. The primary outcome measure was the weekly percentage of ITU patients with pressure ulcers.
By July 2010, that percentage was reduced to zero; as of April 1, 2014, the hospital has maintained this result. Elements that contributed significantly to the program’s success and sustainability include strong leadership, nurse and physician involvement, an […]

2017-07-27T14:45:11-04:00August 8th, 2014|nursing perspective|7 Comments
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Ebola: A Nurse Epidemiologist Puts the Outbreak in Perspective

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

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2016-11-21T13:04:11-05:00August 6th, 2014|infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|29 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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