Nurses’ Experiences as Patients: Recommended Reading from AJN’s August Issue

This painting by emergency physician Lindsey Ball is one of 40 in a series in which Ball painted on deidentified photocopies of electrocardiograms (ECGs). See our “On the Cover” column to learn more.

The August issue of AJN is now live.

“An ED visit and ensuing hospitalization are frightening experiences for anyone, and potentially more so for nurses, who have a deeper understanding of what is happening to them than a lay person might, and thus perhaps a greater level of fear about the consequences,” write Judith Kimchi-Woods and colleagues in this month’s Original Research article, “The Lived Experiences of Nurses as Patients: A Qualitative Study.” Based on their study findings, they offer recommendations for meeting the needs of hospitalized nurses.

To address premedication overuse in blood transfusions at their institution, the authors of “Decreasing Premedication for Blood Transfusions: A Quality Improvement Project” developed and implemented an evidence-based algorithm to guide clinicians in when to administer premedication and an electronic order to be integrated with a premedication plan for each patient on an adult hematology–oncology unit. Learn more—and earn CE credit—here.

Also in this issue, you’ll find the latest installment of AJN‘s Strip Savvy column, “A Case of Symptomatic Bradycardia After […]

2024-07-25T11:15:47-04:00July 25th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments
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Dengue Fever: What Nurses Need to Know Now

This summer the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a health advisory as countries in the Americas report 9.7 million cases of dengue, the highest number in any year. The United States and Puerto Rico have reported 2,559 cases of dengue since January. The CDC expects the numbers to continue to rise as the environment warms.

Nurses in every specialty, but especially those who prepare individuals and families for international travel, will want to know about this latest dengue surge. All U.S. nurses will want to know how to triage, manage, and follow-up these patients to prevent local outbreaks and life-threatening complications.

Dengue (“den-gay”) fever is an age-old viral illness rapidly expanding its global impact beyond the tropics. According to the Rockefeller Foundation, “dengue fever is the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral infection in the world.”

Also known as “breakbone fever” because of the painful arthralgias and myalgias associated with the infection, dengue is a common disease in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific Islands, where it is a health risk for travelers and locals alike.

Currently 3.9 billion people are at risk in 129 countries, including certain areas of the United States. The WHO estimates that […]

2024-07-18T15:10:04-04:00July 18th, 2024|climate change, infection control, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Advancing the Primary Health Care Mandate for Nursing: Recommended Reading from AJN’s July Issue

The July issue of AJN is now live.

To what degree are nurses familiar with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance to nursing practice? Read this month’s Original Research article, “Nurses’ Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding the Sustainable Development Goals: A Global Study,” to find out. (A mural depicting Goal 6,  clean water and sanitation, is featured on the cover.)

In “Reducing Lung Injury from Blind Insertion of Small-Bore Feeding Tubes,” the authors describe a quality improvement project involving the implementation of capnography-guided small-bore feeding tube placement to reduce complications and the incidence of lung perforation in adult patients. (CE credit is available.)

The July issue also includes new installments in several series:

2024-06-24T15:33:53-04:00June 24th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments
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Continuous Glucose Monitoring and Time in Range: Improving Data for Diabetes Management

Nursing roles in diabetes management.

A continuous glucose monitor reader (or a smartphone app) scans the sensor attached to the patient’s body for interstitial fluid glucose level and can provide data such as average blood glucose level or percentage of time spent in a target range over a given period of time.

Knowledge is power. When a person with diabetes knows their blood glucose levels, they can better self-manage lifestyle choices and medications and be an active participant in preventing complications. Glucose information can be obtained through a variety of methods. The majority of people with known diabetes receive reports on their glucose from the health care provider who is able to do lab work to obtain fasting or random blood glucose level, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c, or just A1c) level, and urine glucose.

Nurses play an integral role to partner with the patient about their diabetes and provide education on the meaning of glucose measurement. In the outpatient setting, nurses can help the patient adjust insulin dosages and work on glucose monitoring skills and interpretation. Inpatient, nurses oversee and utilize glucose results and help with self-management skills in anticipation of care at home […]

2024-06-19T10:57:17-04:00June 19th, 2024|Diabetes, digital health, Nursing, patient engagement, Technology|1 Comment
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To Address the Nursing Faculty Shortage, Start with the Pay Gap

The salary gap between clinical and faculty roles.

Photo by AXP Photography on Unsplash

There is a national shortage of nursing faculty to educate the future nurse workforce. The biggest barrier to recruiting and retaining nursing faculty is the salary gap between the faculty and clinical nursing roles. Nurses routinely take pay cuts of as much as $40,000 when leaving clinical practice to teach full-time. The faculty role is vital to the health of the profession, and it is particularly important to recruit excellent educators with relevant clinical experience.

The salary gap raises a clear question: why would one choose to leave clinical practice and take a pay cut? Unfortunately, many nursing advocacy organizations have been silent on this issue, a silence that has contributed to the worsening of the nurse faculty workforce shortage. In 2023, there were 1,977 full-time faculty vacancies that were unfilled, or 7.8% of the faculty workforce. Faculty shortages are projected to worsen over the next decade as an aging faculty workforce approaches retirement.

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2024-07-23T11:30:48-04:00June 14th, 2024|Nursing, Nursing education|3 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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