patient engagement Archives - Page 24 of 25

No Country for Old Women

By Amy M. Collins, associate editor

For the past few weeks, my family has been living a health care nightmare. My 85-year-old grandmother, physically fit and as beautiful as an old-time movie star, but suffering from the first stages of Alzheimer’s disease, had a major meltdown. Her assisted living facility called to say she was harassing the residents and staff, claiming her belongings had been stolen, shouting at people at random, and even calling the police. Clearly not equipped to handle this level of agitation, the facility turned to us to pick her up and keep her for a few days.

The week that followed proved arduous—nobody seemed to know what to do with her. Her GP was at a loss, suggested that we bring her to the ED. Her neurologist prescribed Seroquel (after having to tackle and physically restrain her from the subsequent episode of screaming and pounding her fists on the wall, we called to tell the neurologist that the pill wasn’t working; he said to give her more; four pills later, she was still mildly agitated.) This went on for over a week. She came to live with us, where we listened, exhausted, to constant chatter that didn’t make sense. The talking never stopped—her voice grew hoarse […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:15:38-05:00September 22nd, 2010|nursing perspective, patient engagement|7 Comments

Taking Away Choice — The Wrong Answer to Domestic Violence

By Meg Stone, MPH. Stone is the executive director of IMPACT Boston, an organization that works to prevent violence and abuse by giving people the tools to protect their safety and advocate for healthy relationships and sexual respect in their communities. A long-time domestic violence advocate with a degree in public health, she has, in her own words, “a strong interest in raising awareness of the issues facing women who present to emergency departments with injuries related to abuse. My professional background includes training nurses and first responders in asking about domestic violence and documenting incidents of abuse on medical records.”

This post is longer than our usual, but we thought it was worth running in entirety. The names and identifying details of those mentioned have been changed.

In the mid-1990s it was rare in most places for nurses and social workers to call domestic violence organizations when women came to the emergency department with injuries related to abuse. I only remember one call from a hospital social worker in the upstate New York town where I worked as an advocate at the local battered women’s program.

Carolyn, the director of the battered women’s service, called me at home on my day off. Nobody else was available, she said, so could I please please […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:16:11-05:00August 10th, 2010|Nursing, patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment

Open Medical Records: A Question of Safety

By Christine Moffa, MS, RN, AJN clinical editor

We’ve all watched our health care provider writing or typing while we answered questions or described our symptoms. Before becoming a nurse I used to wonder what they were putting in my chart and if they got it right. And now that I am a nurse I can’t believe how often a medical assistant or nurse will take my vital signs and write them down without telling me what they are. How can it be possible that adults are kept from knowing their own or their children’s health information? Back when I worked on a pediatric floor my colleagues gasped in shock when I allowed a parent of one of my patients to look at his child’s chart. And I actually let them make me feel like I had done something wrong!

Last week this issue was the topic of a column by Dr. Pauline W. Chen in the New York Times, where two related blog posts (here and here) also received much reader commentary. The sudden flurry of interest in the subject was occasioned by an article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine detailing the preliminary findings of a study following a national project called OpenNotes, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in which “more than 100 primary care physicians and 25,000 of their patients will have access to personal medical records online for a 12-month period beginning in summer 2010.” Readers’ comments ranged from one extreme to the other, such […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:16:18-05:00August 3rd, 2010|nursing perspective, patient engagement|3 Comments

Disabled Musicians Featured in Podcasts, AJN Cover, Subject of Oscar-Winning Film

By Shawn Kennedy, interim editor-in-chief

At the Academy Awards ceremony last night, “Music by Prudence,” the documentary about Prudence Mabhena, won the award for best documentary short. Prudence is the lead singer of Liyana, a group of young Zimbabwean musicians who graced the above cover of our August issue last year. All of the band members have some kind of disability and attended the King George VI School and Centre for Children with Physical Disabilities in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. When they performed throughout the United States last year, AJN’s senior editorial coordinator Alison Bulman interviewed them after their concert in New York.

Go here for links to podcasts of interviews with the band and the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams—and also to some of the music of Liyana (the podcasts will load, but right now can take up to 30 seconds on some computers!). You can also read Bulman’s short article about this remarkable troupe here, or a blog post about Liyana we published some months back. Congratulations to Liyana, and to Williams, who helped them tell their story!

(And click here to read an interview posted yesterday on Huffington Post and WalletPop with Alison about her experience interviewing the film’s director and producer, whose relationship has been the subject of controversy since an awkward moment at the Academy Awards ceremony.)

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:18:55-05:00March 8th, 2010|patient engagement|0 Comments

‘Ask Me Three Questions’: Engaging Patients to Promote Safety

By Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN

Next week, March 7–13, is Patient Safety Awareness Week. The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) has sponsored Patient Safety Awareness Week since 2002 to help promote awareness of patient safety issues among hospital staff, patients, and communities. This year’s campaign focuses on engaging patients in theior own care, and it draws upon the NPSF template “Ask Me Three,” which encourages patients to ask these questions: