Health care journalist Rose Hoban used to work for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, of which she says that "most of the projects are, on many levels, run by nurses" (partly, she says, to keep specialist physicians free to practice their specialties).
In keeping with its long history of successfully opposing health care reform, the American Medical Association (AMA) is, surprise, doing it again. And here's a recent AJN editorial on some nurse-led solutions to improving care and reducing costs that should be part of any reform plan: "nurses can help to build the infrastructure we’ll need if we’re to shift from an emphasis on acute care to one on health promotion, chronic care management, and primary care . . . . "
The most recent “Change of Shift,” a regular nursing blogosphere roundup (“the carnival dedicated to nurses and nursing”), is up over at Code Blog. We appreciate the mention of our recent post about virtual nurses in a virtual ICU.
How can we have health care reform without first controlling costs? In this week’s New Yorker, Atul Gawande undertakes a fascinating and in-depth comparison of the very different health care approaches of two American towns. Leave your preconceptions at the door.
Speaking of quality control, here’s Health News Review’s analysis of a recent story in the Washington Post about screening and treatment of major depressive disorder in teens (the story gets a 4 out of a possible 10).
And, for those of you in the mood, here’s one nurse’s blunt message to new interns. A brief excerpt:
I worked as a neurosurgical nurse many years ago at a teaching hospital in the Midwest, and twice a year a new crop of interns descended upon our unit. It was the best show in town. The spectacle began with the chief of neurosurgery, Dr. Holier Than Thou, strutting on to the unit with his entourage marching behind him.
This case study is a truly agonizing look at how care goes wrong in America's nursing homes; the article also provides an in-depth ethical analysis of the dilemmas confronted by nurses who work in nursing homes with substandard care.
If you want to know what the ICU of the future will be like, think of an extremely ill patient connected to myriad tubes and monitors; watched by cameras; every sigh, snore, or change in breath sound picked up by an audio feed.
Then remove the patient, leaving just monitors, speakers, and video screens. […]