How Can We Improve the Hospital Experience of Visually Impaired Patients?

VIP Care Toolbox used in QI project

“Hello, I’m your nurse, Jane. Are you able to see me clearly?”

I have trouble functioning without a pair of eyeglasses within reach. If I were in the hospital without my glasses, I’d be at a loss—unable to read for pleasure, let alone read menus or instructions or consent forms. How much harder is it for people with moderate vision loss, or those who are totally blind?

Christine Carlson and her colleagues at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in Austin, Texas, set out to answer this question. They met with visually impaired people in the community, reviewed the literature, and surveyed their own staff in order to learn the best ways to accommodate the unique needs of visually impaired patients, or ‘VIPs.’

In “Caring for Visually Impaired Patients in the Hospital: A Multidisciplinary Quality Improvement Project” in the May issue of AJN, the authors highlight how frightening and frustrating a hospitalization can be for those with limited or no sight, and share simple, practical interventions that can make an enormous difference in the safety and quality of a VIP’s hospital experience.

“I’m always afraid to go to the hospital. They don’t […]

2020-05-21T09:52:23-04:00May 21st, 2020|patient experience, Patients|0 Comments
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COVID-19: It’s Not Only About Hospital-Based Nurses

‘We all just went charging towards this monster…’

We’ve all seen the photos of nurses in PPE providing care to patients who are obviously very ill with COVID-19. These nurses have justifiably received recognition and accolades for their commitment to duty under the most challenging circumstances and often at great personal risk.

I recently spoke with Megan Brunson, the president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), who is also a supervisor in the cardiovascular ICU at Medical City Dallas Hospital.

Brunson described her own experiences, but also what she was hearing from her colleagues as they all “just went charging towards this monster called COVID.” She also talked about how the organization was rapidly developing resources, not only for clinical care but to help nurses deal with emotional stress. One initiative is partnering with DearWorld.org to create a collection of portraits and stories from nurses caring for patients with COVID-19.

Disrupting work in many settings.

But it behooves us to realize that this pandemic has not caused stress and critical challenges just for acute care nurses; nurses in many settings have been challenged and have had their work disrupted.

In the last two weeks, I spoke with nurses and nursing leaders of several organizations to learn about how the coronavirus pandemic has changed their work. […]

2020-05-15T17:09:36-04:00May 15th, 2020|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing roles|0 Comments
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Addressing Clinician Mental Health and Suicide Risk During the Pandemic

Pandemics are known to cause panic disorder, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and posttraumatic stress. Depression can lead to suicide if not treated, yet is a treatable disease. We have seen nurses die by suicide during this pandemic in Italy.

Past experience suggests that health care workers exposed to the stress of the pandemic will need help long after the pandemic is under control.

I am serving as co-chair of the Strength Through Resilience task force of the American Nurses Association, whose focus was originally to collate resources to reduce suicide among nurses. We quickly shifted gears when the pandemic hit to collate resources to optimize resiliency and mental health among nurses in relation to the projected impact of the pandemic. Curiously, these resources are virtually identical. The ANA has posted initial resources as part of their Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation campaign and is and building more resources as quickly as possible.

Nurses already at higher suicide risk.

The added stress of the pandemic is particularly problematic because of evidence that emerged before the pandemic that nurses were at higher risk of suicide than the general public. If leaders at health care organizations have not already started proactively screening […]

2020-05-12T16:27:31-04:00May 12th, 2020|COVID-19, mental illness, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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An Unimaginable Year of the Nurse and the Midwife

This year’s Nurses Week may be remembered for what didn’t happen.

For nursing, this was to be a year of celebration, of bringing attention to the vital role nurses play as the largest group of health professionals, providing most of the health care to the world. There were commemorative events planned for May 12 to mark the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale and in October an international conference to end a year of highlighting nurses and the nursing profession. In the United States, the American Nurses Association (ANA) changed the annual May Nurses Week to Nurses Month. AJN planned several articles and covers throughout the year, including this issue’s guest editorial on the first-ever State of the World’s Nursing report.

COVID-19 has focused worldwide attention on the vital importance of nursing.

While in-person events have all been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, what has not been lost is the attention to what nurses do and their courage and commitment to provide care to all who need it. And as with colleagues who performed their duties in other pandemics, combat zones, and life-threatening disasters, nurses today have not flinched in the face of great personal risk. I’m in awe of nurses who traveled from around […]

2020-05-07T10:18:35-04:00May 7th, 2020|Nursing|1 Comment
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A Safety Paradox: Stay-at-Home Policies and Domestic Violence Risks

What happens when the very measures put in place to keep us safe and healthy instead place us at risk for harm? For women in abusive relationships, the stay-at-home strategy for controlling the spread of COVID-19 can do just that.

A perfect storm of risk factors for escalating violence.

High stress levels, loss of a sense of control, unemployment, increased time together—all are known to increase the frequency and intensity of intimate partner violence (IPV). A study of IPV rates before and after Hurricane Katrina found a 98% increase in physical IPV and a 35% increase in psychological IPV against women after the hurricane, with stressors as one of the strongest predictors for increased violence. IPV rates are known to rise with unemployment rates; a study of IPV during the economic recession of 2007-2008 found that a rapid rise in unemployment led to increased violence and controlling behaviors. And multiple studies have found that IPV incidents occur at much higher rates on weekends and during the summer—times when couples spend more time together. With Covid-19, people are suddenly unemployed and experiencing stress due to economic hardship, fear of illness, and uncertainty about the future. And couples are now spending all their time […]

2020-05-04T12:27:03-04:00May 4th, 2020|Nursing, Public health, women's health|0 Comments
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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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