Off the Charts

Worker Health Charts: Comparing the Health and Safety of Your Nurses to the Nation

Is this facility’s problem unique?

Most health care facilities conduct regular employee surveys to identify and address problems among their workforce. However, it can be difficult to for a facility to determine if the issues identified in their employee survey are unique to their institution or similar to what is happening at other facilities nationwide.

To answer this question, it would be helpful for health care facilities to have a national data set for comparison. Recently, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) created Worker Health Charts, a tool that charts data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and other national and state-level data sources. The data cover various topics ranging from psychosocial exposures in the workplace (e.g., high job demands and work–life imbalance) to chronic conditions (e.g., cancer and high blood pressure) found among certain jobs, industries, or demographics. Nurse managers and occupational health staff can use Worker Health Charts to include questions in employee surveys and compare their data to national statistics.

How national data can inform a local plan of action.

Guest Author2018-10-17T11:05:56-04:00October 17th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments

AJN’s Recent Breast Cancer Articles: From Screening to Late Treatment Effects

Image via Flickr / Ted Fu

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a time when we hear and read much about breast cancer statistics, the importance of screening, and the stories of those affected by the disease. According to the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States; an estimated 12% of women will face a diagnosis during their lifetimes.

In recognition of this month, we’re sharing a list of some of our most recent articles on the topic, which cover the latest in screening guidelines, treatments and treatment effects, and more:

All of these articles are free to access this month.

Diane Szulecki, editor2018-10-15T09:16:13-04:00October 15th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments

Workplace Violence Training: Beyond Tabletop Exercises

Breaking the rules of ordinary nurse behavior.

Have you ever thrown a fire extinguisher at a hospital visitor?

In this issue, “Workplace Violence Training Using Simulation” describes how one Ohio health system employs classroom learning, hands-on defense techniques, and simulated violence scenarios to prepare staff for potentially violent situations, including the presence of an active shooter.

Part of this training involves learning how to break the rules of ordinary behavior. This is hard for nurses, because it’s so ingrained in us to protect and never to harm. Grabbing a fire extinguisher to throw at someone, even if that person is holding a gun, is not the initial reaction most of us would have in this situation.

“People often freeze or panic in response to acts of aggression, assault, or other violence, including shots fired,” note authors Robin Brown and colleagues. The remarkable workplace violence training that they have developed at their hospital aims to empower staff to respond effectively in dangerous situations. Key points of discussion include learning to

recognize the potential for violence in a patient or visitor,
identify our own behaviors that may trigger a person who already is upset,
and perhaps most importantly, overcome our panic and take action.

[…]

Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2018-10-12T10:25:56-04:00October 12th, 2018|Nursing, nursing research|0 Comments

Why Do Journalists Ignore Nurses?

And what are we going to do about it?

We’ve all seen the stories in print or watched the video clips:

In a story about a hospital’s response to a disaster, the hospital administrator and/or a physician describe the actions of the staff, while behind them one can see nurses rushing about.
In a story about patient survival after a harrowing event, it’s the physician alone who is interviewed about the patient’s care and recovery.

Nurses—and nursing’s role—are made invisible; our contributions are devalued, relegated to little more than a backdrop for most stories about health care or news involving delivery of services. And yet we all know that nurses were intimately involved in the event and outcomes. In ignoring nurses’ experiences and perspectives, health care coverage perpetuates nursing’s invisibility and ignores nursing’s central role in health care.

A replication study reports little progress after 20 years.

In the October issue, Diana Mason and colleagues present their report of a study they conducted as an adjunct to their recent replication of the 1997 Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media. In the replication study,

” . . . nurses were identified as sources in only 2% of health news stories in the same print publications investigated in the earlier study, showing no improvement in […]

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Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2018-10-08T10:41:16-04:00October 8th, 2018|Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments

Being a Nurse, or When Did You ‘Grok’ Nursing?

How does one “become” a nurse, as opposed to learning nursing skills? What is “being” a nurse as opposed to “doing” nursing?

On our Facebook page last week, we posted this query: “Professional identity is more than what you do—it’s a part of who you are. What does being a nurse mean to you?” One of the responses we received was, “Caring providers that own it, do right, work together and solve problems with innovative methods to improve care methods and optimize outcomes.

The respondent’s use of “own it” resonated with me: from the thesaurus, to own something means “to possess, preserve, maintain, hold, profess, declare, accept, have possession of…” To me, it hints at holding onto something valuable, being mindful of it and not losing sight of it.

This original post came about because I had recently attended a meeting at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, where a group of about 50 invitees were asked to brainstorm how nursing students develop a professional identity—How does one “become” a nurse, as opposed to learning nursing skills? What is “being” a nurse as opposed to “doing” nursing? Most of us say, when asked what we do, “I’m a nurse,” not “I do nursing.” And some of us identify […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2018-10-05T10:42:29-04:00October 5th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, nursing perspective|1 Comment