Ms. Nightingale as an Applied Statistician

By Sue Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN (latest in a series of posts by Hassmiller, who’s spending her summer vacation retracing crucial steps in Florence Nightingale’s innovative career)
 
Here at the home of Florence Nightingale, Embley Park (for more on Embley Park, see last week’s blog post), approximately 100 people have convened to study the impact of the “Lady with the Lamp.” The lady herself was multifaceted, and so is this crowd of scholars. There are nurse leaders, of course, but also museum curators, historians, educators, and biographers. They are all interested in their own piece, but also in how their piece fits into the bigger whole of her life. Today we heard Professor Thomas from the University of Southampton School of Business discuss her contributions as an applied statistician.
   

Representing mortality. Early in her life, Ms. Nightingale identified the need for hospitals and healthcare systems to collect and use data to improve care. She asked what use are statistics “if we don’t know what to make of them?” She is credited with developing the famous “coxcomb” illustration, which was a multidimensional way of depicting mortality rates. She used statistics at Scutari Hospital (also called Selimiye Barracks) in Turkey to guide her actions and used statistics and data in the London Times […]

2016-11-21T13:16:32-05:00July 20th, 2010|health care policy, nursing history, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Health Care Reform: What’s In It for Nurses?

A relaxing and safe Fourth of July weekend from the AJN editors to all nurses in the U.S., whether you’re taking it easy or on the job!

A recent poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows rising popularity for the health care reform law. Many hard decisions still need to be made; innovation is more crucial than ever. Nurses who’d like a clearer sense of how the health care reform law may affect them in the coming years should have a look at “Health Care Reform: What’s In It for Nursing?” in our July edition. Written by AJN‘s emeritus editor-in-chief Diana Mason, it points out some of the new models of care the law promotes, models in which nurses play an increasingly important and vital role at every level. As often in the dynamic history of this country, there will be new kinds of opportunities for those who are ready for them.—JM, blog editor

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2016-11-21T13:16:55-05:00July 2nd, 2010|career, health care policy, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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What Lies Ahead? AACN Presidents Weigh In on Health Care Reform, Rapid Response Teams, and More

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

On my last day at the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ annual meeting last week in Washington, DC, I had a chance to speak with both Beth Hammer, whose term as president ended with the meeting, and Kristine Peterson, the new president. Our conversation ranged from how they felt about being president of such a large nursing organization to their views on health care reform and how rapid response teams are affecting the work environment of critical care nurses. You can hear the conversation free on AJN’s Web site: go to the Podcasts tab and click on Conversations. Or just click here (the download may take a minute or two).

And don’t miss my first post from the exhibit hall floor at the meeting (the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, or “the NTI”)  and my second post on a conversation with a critical care nurse about a bad staffing practice, which seems to have hit a nerve!

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2016-11-21T13:17:31-05:00May 24th, 2010|career, health care policy, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Wrapping Up the Health Care Journalists’ Meeting with Sebelius, Frieden, Pronovost, and Others

By Shawn Kennedy, interim editor-in-chief

So I got back from the Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Chicago and a colleague asked, “How was the meeting?” I automatically said it was “good.” But then, I started to think about why I said that and what I’d found valuable—in brief, it’s networking and gaining new information.

I was looking for new information about the latest health issues—mostly about how the experts see health reform shaping up—and about any new issues or initiatives in health reporting. I attended sessions on how the new health reform legislation will affect hospitals (see my recent post on this) as well as state and local health agencies—but there were also presentations on monitoring food safety, lessons learned from H1N1, guidelines for writing about health guidelines, and patient safety advocacy; the new CDC director launched a report on state tobacco use (another post); and I watched a challenging but fascinating primer on health insurance financing from an actuary.

Some things I found worth noting:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying she will not stand by while some health insurance companies attempt to deny claims and push breast cancer patients off their plans. She commented, “It will be hand-to-hand combat if they try.” (See Reuters report for full story.)

Tom Frieden (CDC director) saying that increasing tobacco taxes is the single most effective tool to reduce tobacco use. (Yet taxes in South Carolina have been seven cents since 1977!)

Aida Giachello from the Midwest Latino Health […]

2016-11-21T13:18:02-05:00April 27th, 2010|health care policy|0 Comments
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