CDC Draws Attention to Youth Concussion Risks, Offers Training and Resources

This post was contributed to AJN‘s blog by the Traumatic  Brain Injury Team at the CDC Injury Center.

As an A-student and star soccer player, Sarah was used to hard work. However, after she sustained a concussion while playing a varsity soccer game during her freshman year in high school, she found herself challenged in ways she had never expected.

“Recovering from the concussion was harder than recovering from other injuries I’ve had,” Sarah recalls. “When I got a concussion, I expected to sit out some games, but I never realized that it would actually hurt to think. For nearly two months I needed frequent breaks to make it through the school day. I would have to go to the school clinic and rest when I was overcome by headaches from the lights and noise of the classroom.”

Sarah’s story is not unusual. In fact, children and teens have the highest rate of emergency department visits for traumatic brain injury (TBI), including concussion, of all age groups. Fortunately, Sarah made a full recovery after four months and continues […]

2017-07-27T11:40:44-04:00April 11th, 2017|Public health, school nurses|0 Comments
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Why You Need to Know about the Proposed Health Care Plan

Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin/Flickr/Gage Skidmore

AHCA Release Ignites Concerns from Right and Left

The administration’s plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was released earlier this week and has ignited a firestorm among Republicans and Democrats alike.

Democrats claim the American Health Care Act (AHCA) will create havoc and hardship for millions of the most vulnerable.

Many Republicans are worried about the plan’s effect on their constituents, while more conservative members of the GOP feel it doesn’t go far enough in repealing the ACA.

While there is a stated push by the new administration to “sell” the plan and implement it quickly to keep campaign promises, legislators in both parties are calling for time to examine the plan and analyze the cost of the plan, which has yet to be determined.

As almost everyone knows, finding a way to provide affordable health care in this country is very complicated and requires a delicate balance of funding by the federal government and states. It’s likely that there will be several changes before a final plan is in place.

What seems to be clear is that the changes coming down the road will have a direct impact on nurses, patients, and the institutions in which we work. Will […]

2017-03-09T14:15:23-05:00March 9th, 2017|health care policy, Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health|1 Comment
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ANA’s Cipriano, AARP’s Reinhard Comment on ACA’s Undoing

President Obama signing the ACA in 2010/via Wikimedia Commons

Nurses and the Undoing of the ACA

Many in the nursing community supported the Affordable Care Act (ACA) when it was first introduced. This is understandable, given our firsthand experience of patients who didn’t seek care until they were gravely ill because they lacked health insurance. We know how disease management can change outcomes for those with chronic illness and how preventive care can make the difference between having a treatable cancer or a metastasis.

In the years since, as both supporters and detractors continued to argue over the law and its need to be improved (or scrapped, depending on your viewpoint), over 20 million people gained health insurance and access to care.

Now as Congress moves to repeal and replace the ACA with a yet-to-be-determined plan, many are concerned that major gains will be lost and once again it will be the poor and vulnerable who will suffer. (I touched on some of the concerns in my March editorial.)

To get a little more insight, I spoke with two very policy-smart nurses about what might happen and what they feel should happen.

What ANA president Pam Cipriano said:

I asked ANA president Pam Cipriano what she thought was the most critical aspect of the […]

2017-03-01T10:17:14-05:00March 1st, 2017|health care policy, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Baby Boxes: Gifts Intended to Educate New Parents About Safe Sleeping

A Gift for Every New N.J. Parent

When I had my first child in New Jersey more than a decade ago, the hospital sent me home with a bag of product samples, including a few diapers, a package of wipes, two cans of formula, and an assortment of coupons. These items were helpful to varying extents—I was breastfeeding and unlikely to buy the products featured on the coupons, but the wipes and diapers certainly came in handy. So did the little hat a nurse put on my son’s head soon after birth. With its horizontal pink and blue stripes, this soft beanie that actually stayed in place was ever present during his first few weeks. It was the most useful and well-loved relic of our hospital stay.

The parents of infants in New Jersey are now given an even more practical item, one that also has the potential to reduce infant mortality rates: a baby box. This laminated, nontoxic cardboard box is packed with items that are essential during the early days of parenthood—including diapers, wipes, clothing, and breast pads—but it’s also a bed. The box, which includes a mattress and sheet, provides a safe place for infants to sleep during their first year. It’s free to all new and expectant parents in the state who watch a 20-minute educational video and take a quiz online. Upon completion, they receive a certificate that allows them to pick up the box at a local distribution center or order it by […]

2017-07-27T11:45:04-04:00February 24th, 2017|Nursing, Public health|1 Comment
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An Oncology Nurse’s Perspective on the Health Insurance Situation

Money Bag/ by Julianna Paradisi/ all rights reserved

Costly Care

I was an oncology infusion nurse in a hospital-based ambulatory center for a number of years, many of them before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in 2010. Besides administering chemotherapy and blood products, I infused medications to patients with sickle cell anemia as well as chronic autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and Crohn’s disease.

The common denominator among these diseases is the high cost of the medications used to treat them, at the time ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 per treatment. I know, because patients told me, their nurse.

I also know because uninsured patients were required to fill out paperwork declaring their lack of income, prior to receiving authorization for charitable treatment. If they were sick enough, they were admitted to the hospital for initial treatment, at more expense than outpatient infusion, until the paperwork was completed and approved.

These were particularly difficult times to be an infusion nurse.

Some patients lost their jobs during cancer treatment, because the cost of their cancer care increased their employer’s insurance coverage risk pool rates.

Other patients worked night shift before arriving, sleepless, for chemotherapy as soon as we […]

2017-02-22T14:53:49-05:00February 22nd, 2017|health care policy, Nursing, Public health|1 Comment
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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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