The Many Ways Nurses Can Become Champions of Sustainability

Putting concerns about the environment into practice.

Matthew Lindsley

Matthew Lindsley, MPH, MSN, RN, PHNA-BC, is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and is engaged in clinical trials as an oncology nurse at the National Institutes of Health. He spends his weekends working the soil, caring for animals, and volunteering with a sustainable agriculture initiative to improve the quality and resiliency of local food systems in his community. He is one of a growing legion of nurses who are putting their concerns about the environment into action both inside and outside the workplace.

Our AJN Reports article in the April edition of the American Journal of Nursing, “Nurses Step Up to Address Climate Change and Health,” profiles nurses like Lindsley who are researching the effects of rising temperatures on farmworkers, educating the public about air quality, advocating for policy change, and reducing the waste and emissions generated by the health care sector. The nurses in the article speak about their work and why nurses are well suited to tackle environmental challenges.

Farmer, nurse, researcher, connector.

Lindsley—or “Farmer Matt,” as colleagues know him—is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School […]

2024-04-02T09:27:43-04:00April 2nd, 2024|environmental health, Nursing|0 Comments
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Improving Patient Throughput: Recommended Reading in AJN’s April Issue

The April issue of AJN is now live.

How can an acuity-adaptable model improve patient throughput and care? This month’s Original Research article, “Breaking Through the Bottleneck: Acuity Adaptability in Noncritical Trauma Care,” evaluates the implementation of such a model on a 20-bed noncritical trauma unit, examining the pre- and postimplementation metrics for throughput efficiency, resource utilization, and nursing quality indicators. (CE credit available)

Read “The Occupational and Environmental Hazards of Uncovered Toilets” to learn about the potential exposure risks associated with toilet plume aerosols—and how nurses can address these risks.

Crowdsourced registries have been used to quickly gather information, especially during emerging public health concerns. In “Developing Crowdsourced Clinical Registry Studies,” the authors describe the process of planning, developing, executing, and evaluating the crowdsourced COVID-19 and Invasive Cryptococcal Disease Registry, and highlight the use of a project management approach to successfully implement the resulting study. […]

2024-03-28T11:11:15-04:00March 25th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments
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In AJN’s July Issue, a Guest Editorial by Angelina Jolie and Other Essential Reading

The July issue of AJN is now live.

Among the highlights is a guest editorial by Angelina Jolie, “Addressing Health Inequities in Survivors of Domestic Violence,” which explains the importance of bruise detection technologies for patients with varying skin tones. Referencing her daughter, who is from Ethiopia, she writes:

“Even as my family has access to high-quality medical care, simple diagnoses are missed because of race and continued prioritization of white skin in medicine.”

On this topic in the same issue, see the Nurse Innovators column, “Improving Bruise Detection in Patients with Dark Skin Tone.”

A useful read about getting patients up and moving again after surgery is a CE feature article, “Overcoming Movement-Evoked Pain to Facilitate Postoperative Recovery.” which emphasizes a multifaceted approach that includes timely evaluation and comprehensive care planning.

“Improving Medication Safety in the ICU” is about a nurse-led initiative to reduce medication errors by increasing adherence to safety protocols, including compliance with barcode scanning before medication administration.

A Viewpoint addresses a possible solution to the thorny problem of how a hospital and its nurses handle patient access to medical cannabis.

See also the extensive health care news sections, the Journal […]

2023-06-26T10:17:17-04:00June 26th, 2023|Nursing|0 Comments
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One Hospital and Community’s Rock Garden of Hope

In March 2020, Mount Sinai Queens, like many other hospitals, was overrun with patients with COVID-19. Despite layers of PPE, plus anxiety, exhaustion, and communication overload, the will to not only survive but thrive sustained the breath behind every mask. Heroes of all types were saving and soothing lives, and still are.

Outside the big front door of our hospital is a bustling ED ramp. To the left were two 18-wheel refrigeration trucks, the sight of which could take your breath away. To the far right were two 30-foot inflatable enclosed tents propped up to help the ED off-load abundant overcrowding inside. These were constant reminders that we were living through a once-in-100-year-pandemic.

An ER nurse’s creative response to a grim time.

The health care workers at the hospital weren’t the only ones subjected to these grim sights; so were our Astoria neighbors, who lived on the same block facing the ED ramp. We’ve always prided ourselves on the collaborative work we do for and with this community, including health fairs, screenings, and partnering with them on community boards. So one of us, an ED nurse named Fionnuala Quiqley (Nuala), decided to do something about it.

Nuala is a skilled and passionate ED nurse with more than 14 years of experience. She is […]

2022-12-08T10:19:25-05:00December 8th, 2022|COVID-19, Nursing|1 Comment
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Improving the Discovery and Care of Pressure Injuries in the Emergency Department

Jonathan Nover, MBA, RN

The problem.

Hospital-acquired conditions, particularly pressure injuries (PIs), increased at alarming rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospital isolation precautions and infection prevention practices limited clinician time at the bedside. How does a nurse regularly turn and position a patient if they are unable to enter the room as often as they did prior to the pandemic? In addition, hospitals often operated with high percentages of their workforce out sick.

While Covid may be less of a threat by now, the number of patients admitted to EDs continues to increase while nurse staffing shortages intensify the pressure on nurses to maintain patient safety standards. With patient boarding in EDs becoming more common, the risk of hospital-acquired PIs grows as well, even in the ED. Traditional ED care focuses on rapid screening, assessment, and stabilization, followed by discharge or admission. But the reality is that medical–surgical inpatient care has become more necessary in the ED.

A central element of nursing care is the identification of PIs upon entry to the hospital, PI prevention, and care of existing PIs. Patients who are boarded in the ED, particularly older patient populations with underlying diseases and long length of stays, are at especially high risk for pressure ulcers […]

2022-10-27T11:03:41-04:00October 27th, 2022|Nursing, patient safety|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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