By Lillee Gelinas, MSN, RN, FAAN, Editor-in-Chief
My elevator experience has given me an interesting new insight into the subject of alarm fatigue, questioning the response time difference between personal alerts and clinical, professional, or environmental ones. For me, it’s alarming.
Personal alerts vs. clinical alarms. Whether you work in the emergency department, an intensive care unit, or a med-surg unit, in an inpatient or outpatient setting, how often do you hear alarms on your shift?
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By Kelly Haight, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, PCCN
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement, (TAVR) offers provides an alternative for patients who aren’t candidates for surgical AVR. The author provides an overview of the procedure and patients’ needs.
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Addressing Oral Health Needs of Patients with Diabetes
By Cynthia S. Darling-Fisher, PhD, FNP-BC; Wenche S. Borgnakke, DDS, MPH, PhD; and Judith Haber, PhD, APRN, BC, FAAN
Patients with diabetes have special needs for oral health assessment and care. The authors include a brief assessment tool that nurses can use to determine risk for periodontitis.
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By George Allen, PhD, CIC, CNOR, FAPIC
The Centers for Disease Control, (CDC) recently updated its 1999 guideline for preventing Surgical Site Infections (SSIs).
Here’s what you need to know.
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Strictly Clinical
By Michelle Speidel, MSN, RN, N. Ed.
This author discusses the importance of this vaccine and how to discuss it with parents.
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Practice Matters
By Jessica Hay, MSN, CPNP-AC
Rapid response teams are usually linked with general acute care hospitals, but they have applicability in other settings too.
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From Where I Stand

By Leah Curtin
When healthcare bills are developed in secret, how do we know what’s true?
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Practice Matters

By Pamela F. Cipriano
Healthcare quality and access were front and center at the 2017 International Council of Nurses Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
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By Liz Stokes
Find out what some of your colleagues have to say about ethics in nursing. At the June 2017 American Nurses Association (ANA) Membership Assembly in Washington DC, the Center for Ethics and Human Rights hosted a discussion with participants to assess the ethical climate of current nursing practice and determine needs across the nursing spectrum.
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By Ashleigh Anderson, BSN, RN, PCCN, and Amanda Swedhin, BSN, RN, CMSRN
Implementing a Comfort Menu and Pain Cart to enhance use of nonpharmacologic pain management therapies among patients improved patient satisfaction scores.
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Career Sphere
Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) to the rescue!
By Nadine Marchi, DNP, RN, CCRN, CNE, and Rachel Grdina, BS
The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Institute provide a wide variety of resources helpful to nurses in both education and practice.
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By Timothy P. Luckett, CRNFA
Explore the possibilities of this exciting practice setting.
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Leading the Way
Avoiding Career Derailers
By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Take steps to ensure your career doesn’t veer off track.
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As this nurse leader explains, communicating with compassion is always the best option.
“Be kind whenever possible, and it is always possible.”
For Rose Constantino, PhD, JD, RN, FAAN, FACFE, the 2016 recipient of ANA’s Jessie M. Scott Award, these words from the Dalai Lama are the ones she lives and leads by in her work as a teacher, researcher, advocate, and mentor.
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Mind, Body, Spirit
By Joy Longo, PhD, RNC-NIC
The author shares a practical strategy for addressing some difficult situations.
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Take Note: Drugs and Devices Today
Protecting American Families: Comprehensive Approach
to Nicotine and Tobacco.
Remarks by Scott Gottlieb, M.D. / Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration
July 28, 2017 / White Oak, MD
Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. But much has changed in the landscape of tobacco product regulation and FDA’s ability to address this public health crisis.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today expanded the approval of Imbruvica (ibrutinib) for the treatment of adult patients with chronic graft versus host disease (cGVHD) after failure of one or more treatments.
This is the first FDA-approved therapy for the treatment of cGVHD.
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Exhausted by alarms?
Six steps to hospital alarm management.
By Maria Cvach, DNP, RN, FAAN, and Sharon H. Allan, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRC
- Excessive monitor alarms, many of which are nonactionable, may lead to to alarm fatigue and unsafe practices such as disabling or ignoring alarms.
- The Joint Commission has issued a national patient safety alarm management goal.
- Alarm management requires an interdisciplinary approach and multiple strategies have successfully been used to reduce alarm burden.
- This article describes 6 steps to successful alarm management.
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Conquering Alarm Fatigue Infographic
Follow these 10 steps to safer alarm management.
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