Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: A Panacea?

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the sale of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss (not severe hearing loss), beginning Oct. 17, 2022. What should nurses know about these devices?

Margaret Wallhagen

Hearing loss is one of the most common chronic conditions, becomes increasingly prevalent across the life span, and is far from benign. This latter fact is often not appreciated, but hearing loss is associated with a range of negative psychosocial concerns such as isolation and depression, as well as many health-related conditions, including falls, delirium, and cognitive decline.

For a long time, I’ve been passionate about raising awareness about hearing loss and its impact on people, their families, society, and the health care they receive, as well as promoting hearing health care access. One intervention that can mitigate some of the impact of hearing loss is the use of hearing aids. The focus of this brief blog post is on a new opportunity for people to access this technology that those of us in health care should be aware of.

Cost as a barrier to use of hearing aids.

Prescription hearing aids, while far from perfect, can help, and usually do make hearing […]

2022-12-05T17:33:55-05:00December 5th, 2022|health care policy, Nursing, Patients, Public health, Technology|2 Comments
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ER Nurse Who Called 911 for Backup: ‘What Are We Afraid Of?’

Making the call.

As I got home this morning after a hectic 12-hour shift as charge RN in a 50-bed ER, I sat in my silent car for a moment to ponder how much has changed in the last three weeks.

Three weeks ago, overwhelmed by walk-in patients and ambulance traffic and severely short-staffed, I called the emergency services non-emergent line and asked for help in our crowded lobby. I wasn’t thinking about the repercussions, about the uproar or the giant target I sometimes feel I’ve installed on my back with my outspokenness. I was thinking about my coworkers, spread too thin, exhausted and afraid for their licenses, and the patients that I knew had been sitting in the lobby for hours, sick and in pain and mostly unmonitored. I had no idea of the attention that call would receive.

Did speaking out change anything?

Someone recently asked, “What changes have you seen in the month since you made that call?”

For myself, I’ve been learning to navigate in a more public arena, […]

2022-12-01T09:51:43-05:00December 1st, 2022|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient safety, safe staffing|5 Comments
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Improving the Discovery and Care of Pressure Injuries in the Emergency Department

Jonathan Nover, MBA, RN

The problem.

Hospital-acquired conditions, particularly pressure injuries (PIs), increased at alarming rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospital isolation precautions and infection prevention practices limited clinician time at the bedside. How does a nurse regularly turn and position a patient if they are unable to enter the room as often as they did prior to the pandemic? In addition, hospitals often operated with high percentages of their workforce out sick.

While Covid may be less of a threat by now, the number of patients admitted to EDs continues to increase while nurse staffing shortages intensify the pressure on nurses to maintain patient safety standards. With patient boarding in EDs becoming more common, the risk of hospital-acquired PIs grows as well, even in the ED. Traditional ED care focuses on rapid screening, assessment, and stabilization, followed by discharge or admission. But the reality is that medical–surgical inpatient care has become more necessary in the ED.

A central element of nursing care is the identification of PIs upon entry to the hospital, PI prevention, and care of existing PIs. Patients who are boarded in the ED, particularly older patient populations with underlying diseases and long length of stays, are at especially high risk for pressure ulcers […]

2022-10-27T11:03:41-04:00October 27th, 2022|Nursing, patient safety|0 Comments
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Getting Nurses with Substance Use Disorders the Help They Need

“Nurses have distinctive risk factors associated with the work environment that may increase the probability of developing an SUD.”

In my previous roles as the director of the emergency department and pediatric intensive care unit, I worked with nurses who were enrolled in the Intervention Project for Nurses (IPN), which is a substance use disorder (SUD) assistance program.

My colleagues would often ask me why I’d hire anyone who was enrolled in this program. My response was that these are the ones who are getting help and trying to recover. I feel safe with these nurses because I know they are being monitored and receiving treatment—it’s the other nurses that I worry about. […]

2022-10-12T09:33:38-04:00October 12th, 2022|career, Ethics, Nursing, patient safety|0 Comments
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We Haven’t Made You Better: Orthopedic Trauma and Emotional Healing

Learning that healing the body isn’t always enough.

For much of my career as a trauma ICU nurse and orthopedic trauma nurse practitioner, I focused on building my knowledge of pathophysiology and mastering the assessment and procedural skills required to care for trauma survivors. After a decade of practice, I felt like I had entered the “expert” phase of clinical competence described by Dr. Patricia Benner in AJN in 1982.

But I was completely ignorant of a giant hole in my practice. A trauma survivor pointed out this gap during a routine clinic visit. Ms. H was six months removed from an ankle fracture she’d suffered in a motor vehicle collision on her way to work one morning. On exam, she had regained full strength and range of motion, the fracture was healed on radiographs, and her pain was limited to a minor ache after extended activity. She’d healed remarkably.

I told her that she had done an excellent job with her recovery and could resume her life, including going to work. I’ve come to believe that Ms. H’s response to this assertion changed my entire perspective on patient care. “I can’t go back to work,” she said. “Since the accident, I can’t get in a car without having panic attacks.”

I […]

2022-09-16T11:39:37-04:00September 16th, 2022|Nursing, nursing research, Patients|0 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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