The Nursing Report That Didn’t Just ‘Sit on a Shelf’

Joyce Pulcini is director of the master’s programs and of community and global initiatives at the George Washington University School of Nursing in Washington, DC. She also is the contributing editor for AJN’s Policy and Politics column.

From otisarchives4, via Flickr From otisarchives4, via Flickr

IOM speakers and panel focus on a major report’s increasingly visible real world effects—while emphasizing diversity and the roles of every type of nurse at every level.

On December 11, I attended the Institute of Medicine (IOM) event celebrating the three-year anniversary of the The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health report, released in 2010. The event at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, highlighted the impact of the report so far and discussed the continued work of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action in terms of priorities for the nursing profession.

Some highlights:

2016-11-21T13:05:49-05:00December 18th, 2013|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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Evidence Contradicts AAFP: NPs Ideal for Leading Patient-Centered Medical Homes

By Karen Roush MS, RN, FNP-C, AJN clinical managing editor

What will it take to end the turf war physicians are waging  against nurse practitioners? The latest foray is over who should lead patient-centered medical homes (PCMH). According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), only physicians should. They insist that nurse practitioners do not have the knowledge or skills to do so and that expanding the NP’s role in primary care would create a “two-tiered health system,” with patients who are cared for by an NP receiving a lower level of care.

That’s not what the evidence says. Or patients for that matter. Studies consistently find that when care provided by NPs is compared to care provided by physicians, the care is similar as far as prescriptions ordered and referrals made—most important, outcomes are the same.

Well, there is one area where differences keep showing up: patient satisfaction. Patients consistently say that they are more satisfied with care provided by nurse practitioners. They say that nurse practitioners listen better, spend more time with them, and provide them with more information.

Not only are nurse practitioners capable of leading medical homes, their education and skills make them ideal for this role. Whereas physicians focus on pathology and have the depth of knowledge and skill to manage highly complex patients, NPs focus on the “human response to disease” and take a more holistic approach to patient care. Nurses coordinate care all the time, identifying […]

2016-11-21T13:09:11-05:00October 3rd, 2012|nursing perspective|4 Comments
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Nurse Blog Notes: Generation Gaps, Hypothermia, Informatics, Nurses Writing

By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor/blog editor

via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s skip the latest research findings, policy disputes, the unpleasant wait for the Supreme Court to decide the fate of health care reform. Here’s what we’re finding on the nursing blogs these days, a sample of recent posts you might find of interest:

The Nerdy Nurse offers “7 Tips to Be a Successful Clinical Informatics Nurse.” The post isn’t terribly technical; instead, it’s for nurses who might be thinking of going into this line of nursing, and to that end it highlights some strengths to emphasize in an interview.

At madness: tales of an emergency room nurse, a recent post called “There’s a Human Being Under There” sketches out a bit of what’s involved in inducing “therapeutic hypothermia” (for more detail, preview the July AJN CE “Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest”), but then steps back far enough to remember that all of these processes involve an actual person.

Those Emergency Blues takes an undogmatic look at so-called “generation gaps” among nurses. Instead of throwing stones, dividing the world into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ this post takes a more sensible, fair-minded, probing approach:

Ultimately what I am trying to get at is while I am sure generation gaps exist on units, I do not believe it is entirely as a result of degree vs diploma more than it might be just personality related. Differing maturity levels, different interests, and people at different […]

2016-11-21T13:09:52-05:00June 19th, 2012|Nursing|5 Comments
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Boards of Nursing and the Amanda Trujillo Case

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

Amanda Trujillo

Our prior post on the Amanda Trujillo case elicited many comments, on a variety of themes. There were also referrals and crosslinks to other sites supporting, analyzing, and weighing in on the situation, including statements from the Arizona Nurses Association and the ANA, and a post on a physician blog, “White Coat’s Call Room,” which has vowed to carry all the details once the case is decided.

One complaint raised by several people in response to our post was that the Arizona Board of Nursing wasn’t supporting Amanda. State nursing or medical boards are regulatory boards that exist to ensure the protection of the public and to regulate professional practice according to the law (in nursing’s case, according to nursing practice acts). They do not aim to protect the individual nurse, but to assure that all those who claim to be nurses are eligible to claim that title and practice within their scope of practice as defined by law.

Some historical context: Regulatory boards were set up back in the early 1900s, after nursing associations successfully lobbied for registration laws to keep out unqualified women who posed as nurses. In 1903, North Carolina was the first state to enact a nurse practice act; by the mid-1920s, all 48 states had laws regulating who could practice and who could use the title “registered nurse.”

Thus, boards of nursing are intended to protect the consumer and the […]

2016-11-21T13:10:42-05:00February 17th, 2012|Ethics, healthcare social media, Nursing|12 Comments
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When Lawmakers and Physicians Hold Nurses Back

Editor’s Note: Toni Inglis, MSN, RN, CNS, FAAN, writes opinion for the Austin (TX) American-Statesman. She works at the Seton Healthcare Family in Austin as a neonatal ICU staff nurse and also writes a nursing blog for Seton and edits its monthly NursingNews. This article is a reprint of an April 22nd commentary in the Statesman. Toni was inspired to write the column after a particularly disappointing legislative session, in which Texas advanced practice nurses made fewer gains than in past sessions—despite Texas ranking last in access to health care and having the most restrictive laws in the country regarding APRN scope of practice and prescriptive authority. She believes the poor access and barriers to practice are related.

AJN finds the article particularly relevant as legislatures across the country deliberate on APRN barriers to practice. You can read her commentaries at ingliscommentary.com.

Here’s an idea that wouldn’t cost Texas a dime but would save millions of dollars every year: Remove all barriers restraining nurses from practicing to the full extent of their education and training.

No state needs primary care providers more than Texas, which has a severe shortage. Texas ranks last in access to health care and in the percentage of residents without health insurance. Of Texas’ 254 counties, 188 […]

2016-11-21T13:10:43-05:00February 13th, 2012|health care policy, nursing perspective|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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