Meeting Nightingale in Alabama; Where Were the Young Nurses? Further Notes from the Disaster Zone
Sue Hassmiller has been blogging from the tornado-damaged area in Alabama, where she’s volunteering for the Red Cross. This and all other posts in this series are collected on a separate page for easy reference.—JM, senior editor/blog editor
Finishing up some very difficult hospital visits with victims and family members at the University of Alabama–Birmingham Medical Center today, I saw the sign for the school of nursing. I remembered Dean Dodi Harper telling me last year of a man who had donated to her school what might be the largest grouping of original Florence Nightingale letters. A priceless gift indeed! Her intent was to transcribe the letters and eventually have an exhibit. As I saw the School of Nursing sign, the conversation all came back to me . . . and then I realized it was May 12, Nightingale’s actual birthday, the day we celebrate Nurses Day! Too good to be true: I e-mailed the dean and got an immediate response (I love those type A personalities!). She was away, but the assistant dean for clinical affairs and partnerships, Cindy Selleck, would welcome me—and indeed on this occasion the letters were on display in a temporary exhibit. Having been on a special Nightingale tour last year to England and Istanbul/Scutari, the words of this great mentor had taken on a whole new meaning for me (here’s the blog series I wrote at the time).
Seeing this very special exhibit and Nightingale’s words on her very […]
Swimming from Alcatraz
by jitze couperus via Flickr
By Marcy Phipps, RN, whose essay “The Soul on the Head of a Pin” appeared in the May 2010 issue of AJN. She’s a frequent writer for this blog.
I’m going to swim from Alcatraz.
It’s daunting, yet irresistible, and a challenge I’m not taking lightly. As part of my preparation, I’ve purchased the book Open Water Swimming: Lessons from Alcatraz. In it, Joe Oakes and Gary Emich deliver a wealth of information and practical advice in a very direct way. They’ve provided much to mull over during my long training swims—and I’ve been struck by how well the principles they stress can be applied to nursing:
“Never swim alone and always swim with a competent pilot.”
It would obviously be unwise to attempt a treacherous swim alone. Similarly, it’s vital to work with a team who can be trusted to back one another up. It’s also vital to know who the resource people are and to have a mentor, whether formally or informally.
“There are plenty of sharks in San Francisco Bay.”
Unfortunately, there are occasionally sharks amongst hospital staff, as well. Shark-like behavior should be identified for what it is, and handled accordingly. It should never be taken personally.
“Wet suits are the most obvious way to keep yourself insulated.”
The […]
Health Care Reform Works—If You Work It
By Gail M. Pfeifer, MA, RN, AJN news director
My husband and I both recently had preventive screening colonoscopies, which are now covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as preventive care for adults over 50. That coverage, if you purchased a new health insurance plan on or after September 23, 2010, which we did, means you do not have to pay a copayment or coinsurance or meet a deductible if you use an in-network provider (here’s a full list of preventive services covered under the new law). You would think that medical office billers and insurance companies would know that by now.
Although some plans have clauses that let them off the hook on this rule, ours does not—these tests should have been covered. Lucky for us, we knew it when the bills came in. To make a long story short, I was billed for the “surgery” and for the anesthesia. So I first called the billing department of the GI specialist’s office and asked them to rebill the procedure correctly, as preventive screening. No further bills from them, for me, but shortly afterward, my husband was billed by the same office for “surgery” occurring months later—same doc, same procedure, same billing office. He’s following up with phone calls as I write.
I next called the anesthesia billing office, which said our insurance company had denied the claim. I called the insurance company, which looked at our plan […]
Same Boat, Different Ocean
By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief
Since the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing report was released six months ago, we’ve heard a lot about how nurses need to have more representation on boards of health care institutions and be more active participants in decisions about redesigning health care delivery systems. (See our online resource page for a variety of information about the report.)
To me, it’s a recommendation that’s so intuitive and simple that it’s almost embarrassing—and the need for it only drives home how absurd our health care system can be. It’s mind-boggling to me that organizations feel they can plan effective health care without the input of nurses. Imagine aircraft manufacturers designing a plane without input from the primary group—pilots—who will be responsible for flying it safely.
I suppose many health care entities and boards feel that they have this input from physicians—but really, in most hospitals physicians aren’t involved in the nitty-gritty operations details that either make or break workflow processes or can impede the delivery of safe, cost-effective care. How many times have hospitals planned patient care units or purchased equipment without nursing, input only to find that the systems aren’t workable or create more work? […]