MedSurg Nursing back issues from October 2005:
Influencing health care policy with our children in mind.(from Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Recently several articles on access to care and insurance caught my attention. These articles exemplified the need for nurses to make it a point to be informed about and influence health policy legislation. Most of us are aware that a staggering number of persons in the United States do ...
Don't just change--be transformed!(Editorial)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Carolina Medical Review recently hosted a meeting to introduce key staff members from South Carolina hospitals to the 8th Statement of Work (SOW), the quality program of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). According to our meeting hosts, the 8th SOW represents a turning ...
Barriers to addressing patient sexuality in nursing practice.(CE SERIES)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Patient sexuality has been recognized as an important domain for nursing practice and a priority for research by many specialty organizations (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2004; Gordon, Sawin, & Basta, 1996; Kim & Moritz, 1982). Research has shown that many nurses believe sexuality ...
A comparison of three stool tests for colorectal cancer screening.(CE SERIES)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Colorectal cancer (CRC) death rates continue to decrease in both men and women, yet the disease ranks third for estimated new cancer cases and third for estimated cancer deaths in both men and women. The American Cancer Society (ACS) predicts 149,280 new CRC cases and 56,910 CRC deaths in ...
Job stress and general well-being: a comparative study of medical-surgical and home care nurses.(Research for Practice)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Stress is pandemic in today's society. Results of an occupational stress survey in the early 1990s (Northwestern National Life, 1991) showed that the proportion of workers who reported feeling "highly stressed" more than doubled between 1985 and 1990 (Speilberger & Vagg, 1999). Since that ...
AHRQ supports and encourages nursing research.(MEDSURG MINUTE)(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
Oct 01, 2005 ... Nurses have several opportunities to work with internal programs at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and to apply for AHRQ extramural research grants. These opportunities were outlined in two recent articles by Agency staff. Beth A. Collins Sharp, PhD, RN, and ...
Collaboration to promote best practices in care of older adults.(Best Practice)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Nurses are concerned about providing quality care to the growing population of older adults. To address this concern, a group of eight faculty members at one Midwestern university's school of nursing founded a grassroots collaboration called the Gerontology Interest Group (GIG). The ...
Doctors who have been in practice longer may provide lower quality of care.(MEDSURG MINUTE)(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... Although "practice makes perfect" in some situations, physicians' knowledge and performance may decline with the passage of time, suggests Stephen B. Soumerai, ScD, of the HMO Research Network Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics which receives support from the Agency for ...
ACS publishes manual on Surgical Patient Safety.(American College of Surgeons)(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... The American College of Surgeons (ACS) published its new manual Surgical Patient Safety: Essential Information for Surgeons in Today's Environment, which is intended to provide guidance and leadership in evolving areas of patient safety in the surgical profession. The 200-page ...
Joint Commission announces 2006 National Patient Safety Goals.(MEDSURG MINUTE)(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) announced the 2006 National Patient Safety Goals and related requirements for each of its accreditation programs and its disease-specific care certification program. The goals and requirements, approved by the Joint ...
Disclosure of medical errors to patients.(Professional Issues)
Oct 01, 2005; ... The purpose of this literature review is to determine if patients wish to learn about medical errors regardless of the extent or severity. It will further explore how patients want the information conveyed. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) (1999), health care in the United ...
Joint Commission announces 2006 National Patient Safety Goals for ambulatory care and office-based surgery.(MEDSURG MINUTE)(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations announced the 2006 National Patient Safety Goals and related requirements that will apply specifically to accredited ambulatory care facilities and offices in which surgery is performed. Major additions to this ...
One-third of hospital nurses made an error or near error over a 1-month period.(MEDSURG MINUTE)(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... During a 28-day period, one-third of a random national sample of 393 full-time hospital staff nurses reported making a medical error or near error, according to a study supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (HS11963). Patient consequences ranged from relatively benign ...
Nurses tend to use individual behavioral and visual cues to assess pain in nursing home residents.(MEDSURG MINUTE)
Oct 01, 2005 ... One-fourth of nursing home residents who suffer from daily moderate-to-severe pain receive no pain-relieving medication. Nursing home staff rarely incorporate formalized pain assessment protocols in their assessment of residents' pain, which they consider regulatory in nature and ...
HMO penetration affects the relationship between RN staffing and quality of care.(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... Increasing registered nurse staffing seems to improve quality of care at hospitals that are at lower levels of RN staffing when the hospitals are located in markets with high HMO penetration (greater than 27.9%), according to a recent study supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research ...
Magnet Recognition Program[R] 2005: an update.(Professional Issues)
Oct 01, 2005; ... The Magnet Recognition Program[R] (MRP) continues to transform the health care work environment in the United States while gaining ever increasing international attention. Recently, Aiken (2005) wrote that the standards used for Magnet recognition strengthen the nursing profession and also ...
Horowitz's impact of event scale an assessment of Post Traumatic Stress in older adults.(try this: BEST PRACTICES IN NURSING CARE TO OLDER ADULTS from The Hartford Institute for Genetic Nursing)
Oct 01, 2005; ... WHY: Like others with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), older adults respond to trauma with symptoms of re-experiencing, emotional numbing, behavioral avoidance, and increased physiological arousal. Because of age-related changes and associated disease processes, stress reaction in ...
Medical-surgical nurses volunteer to aid tsunami victims.(Military Nursing)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Following the tsunami in Southeast Asia, health care and relief organizations from around the globe mobilized to aid victims in desperate need of food, water, shelter, and health care. This international effort brought together providers from many countries. Both governmental and ...
Remaking American Medicine.(MEDSURG MINUTE)(American Nurses Association's Remaking American Medicine ... Health Care for the 21st Century)(Brief Article)
Oct 01, 2005 ... The American Nurses Association (ANA) has partnered with 40 national organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Heart Association (AHA), and the American Hospital Association (AHA), on a public outreach campaign focused on improving health ...
Review of the endocrine system.(Preparing for certification)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Endocrinology is the study of mechanisms of communication and control at work within a living organism by means of internally synthesized chemical messengers. The endocrine system regulates the functions of various organs, tissues, and cells in order to maintain homeostasis or elicit some ...
Registered nurse Safe Staffing Act of 2005: Part I.(Ethics, Law and Policy)
Oct 01, 2005; ... Hospital nurse staffing has been the subject of a great deal of media coverage and research in recent years. Research indicates decreased adverse outcomes are associated with higher levels of staffing by registered nurses (RNs) (Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, & Silber, 2002; Needleman, ...
Type 2 diabetes epidemic increases use of oral anti-diabetic agents.(Nursing Pharmacology)
Oct 01, 2005; ... The prevalence of type 2 diabetes has grown to epidemic proportions over the last decade in the United States with a 33% increase since the 1990s. Reasons for this epidemic include the advancing age of the population, increasing prevalence of obesity, and decreased physical activity among ...
Low carb management.(Nursing Management)
Oct 01, 2005; ... It is a safe bet that the majority of people reading this article are like the author: they are struggling either to maintain or lose weight. Also it is probably safe to say that most of us have tried many fad diets through which to do so. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...
Clinical trials: what you and your patients need to know.(Cancer: Caring and Conquering)
Oct 01, 2005; ... The purpose of the next two Cancer. Conquering and Caring columns is to provide nurses with information about clinical trials, such as how to find out about current clinical trials and patient perspectives to consider when discussing clinical trials with patients and/or their family ...