Off the Charts

Update on Charla Nash, 2: Mauling Victim Doing Better Than Expected

I recently had an e-mail exchange with Michael Nash, the twin brother of Charla Nash. Charla was the victim of a chimpanzee mauling in February of this year. I first wrote a post about her in April and then an update on her condition in May. In April, she had just spoken her first words, her daughter’s name and her nurse’s name, upon waking from a medically induced coma. Michael tells me now that Charla continues to recover. Most of her physical wounds have healed, and she will soon be discharged to a rehab facility. She is blind and has prosthetic eyes.

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:24:53-05:00July 23rd, 2009|Nursing|3 Comments

Scaring Nurses Off Health Care Reform?

An example of the kind of misinformation that is being spread to scare people about health care reform can be found in the Allnurses.com post quoted below. The altered U.S. flag image to the left (by fletcherwarren, via Flickr) suggests, with perhaps intentional irony, the McCarthy-era fear-mongering about socialism that seems to underlie many such blanket dismissals of health care reform. What do you think? And where are people getting such information?

. . . I just want to know If Im the only person who is considering not doing nursing if the gov’t goes through with universal health care. I was talking to my manager about this tonight at work and he was saying that Im probably not going to want to do nursing since nurses will make $9 or $10 an hour. I know nursing isnt about money, but that kind of money isnt worth going into nursing. You cant even live off that amount of money! Nurses now say they dont get paid enough for how hard they work and how much they have to put up with. Am I the only thats thinking like this?

[EDITORS’ NOTE: COMMENT THREAD ON THIS POST IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS.]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:25:01-05:00July 22nd, 2009|health care policy|31 Comments

Reform Watch: Insider Exposes Insurance Industry’s Practices; Obama Says Nurses Know Health Care Best

Kaiser Health News draws attention to a WSJ story about a former health insurance PR insider who’s been speaking out against insurance practices and the industry’s attack campaign against health care reform:

A former health insurance spokesman speaks out against insurance practices. The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones reports: “Wendell Potter, former chief spokesman for health insurer Cigna Corp., describes himself in his Twitter bio as a ‘journalist who spent 20 years undercover as HMO PR flack, now writing all about it.’ While Potter chuckles about the line, he is serious about his foray into the U.S. health reform debate, where he is campaigning for a public health-plan option and, with mild delivery and tough words, targeting what he calls ‘deceptive and dishonest’ tactics of a for-profit health insurance industry that’s fighting such a plan.”

And in an interview with NPR (full transcript here), President Obama calls nurses “the people who know health care best” and says they are among those who know why we need health care reform:

JIM LEHRER: And you’re not — you will not be satisfied by somebody or some group or somebodies that say, “Well, OK, let’s do it — but we can’t do it now; we have economic things to do. We have other things in the economy to deal with; let’s wait a year, let’s wait six months. Forget it, huh?”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: If not now, when? We have literally been waiting 50 years and we still haven’t gotten it done. And the longer we delay, the more those special […]

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Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2009-07-21T17:14:44-04:00July 21st, 2009|health care policy, nursing perspective|0 Comments

IOM Commission on Future of Nursing: Help or Waste?

Nursing still needs one united voice to speak on such issues. Maybe this work will help to solidify such a voice. I know that Donna Shalala, the Commission's co-chair, will continue to champion nursing and breaking down the barriers to access to nursing services. I hope organized nursing will not wait for Shalala, but will ask how it can support the IOM's work.

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2009-07-21T11:22:08-04:00July 21st, 2009|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments

Is Health Information Technology a HIT with Nurses?

“Don’t design an information system and then say, ‘OK, now let’s change our workflow to make the system work.’ First, design the most effective workflow that delivers safe, efficient, high-quality patient care. Then ask ‘How will this system enable me to do that?”‘ —Linda Burnes Bolton, vice president and chief nursing officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles

Health information technology (HIT): it’s a hugely complicated topic and, with $19 billion in federal stimulus funds accelerating its adoption by medical offices and hospitals, it’s going to have an increasing impact on the way nurses do their jobs over the next few years. […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:25:04-05:00July 20th, 2009|digital health, nursing perspective|0 Comments