Editorial

lessons-from-covid-19

A better normal

Emerging trends are defining nursing’s future. It’s hard to imagine that just a year ago the world was in a very different place. Now in the midst of…

A Capital idea?

What’s the correct way to use the word “Nurse”? When should a lower case “n” be used? Or should the “N” always be capitalized? Should the capitalized word…
Gratitude

A new sense of gratitude

In 2021, giving thanks is different.  In November, Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to stop and reflect on the people and events that have made a difference in…
season thanks

A season of thanks

Expressing gratitude is good for you. AS I REFLECT on the Thanksgiving season, I think about how thankful I am for my many nursing colleagues and their constant…

A summer of learning

The period from Memorial Day to Labor Day is a special time—a stretch of (ideally) sunny days when school is out and vacation time becomes a priority. In a typical year,…
Metrics

Acute care needed: The call for valid acuity systems

ALTHOUGH HEALTH CARE has been changing rapidly, staffing models have stayed essentially the same for decades. Those models rely solely on financial and patient-volume metrics to drive operational decisions related to nurse…

Advanced practice nurses: Show your spirit

Declare the importance of your independence. WE CELEBRATE American Independence Day on July 4 every year. Fireworks, parades, carnivals, concerts, and baseball games are just a few of…

Advantages of a nursing shortage

Since the day I became a nurse, it seems there’s been a nursing shortage. No matter where you practice, everybody talks about it. Is it because we never seem…

AI can identify signs of staff burnout

Leverage existing and emerging tools to help address this persistent nursing challenge. Lillee Gelinas Artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify signs of staff burnout by using a range…

Alligators, swamps, and medication safety

Resolved: Stay focused on safe patient care Five years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its third global patient safety challenge, which aimed to improve medical safety.…
thank you best luck future cipriano osborne

Arrivederci, Dr. Cipriano

All of us at HealthCom Media are extremely fortunate to have worked closely with American Nurse Today’s founding Editor-in-Chief Pam Cipriano. Over the last 8 years, Pam has…

Avoiding career stallers and stoppers

A newly graduated nurse asked me how she could avoid the “job stupid stuff,” as she called it. She wanted to know what actions might hurt her career long-term, such…

Bah humbug: Not from nurses!

“Bah humbug.” It’s the well-known slogan of Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character in Charles Dickens’ 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. Scrooge, who views Christmas and the holidays as…

Be the voice of reason

Many nurses encounter patients in their practice who disagree with prescribed treatment or preventive measures based on “facts” they’ve gathered online.

Better focus in a too-busy world

Are you doing multiple things? Thumbing through this month’s edition of American Nurse Today while watching television? Listening to a colleague while writing care notes? You may believe doing two…
pandemic

Beyond the pandemic: Looking forward

How a global health crisis has changed nursing. It’s hard to believe we’ve been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for more than 18 months. Nursing practice and nursing…
Performance

Beyond the tip of the iceberg

For decades, nurses have been attempting to demonstrate their value in promoting high-quality, patient-centered care in terms everyone understands. Florence Nightingale even tried to document the value of…
Big data

Big data: Big roles in big demand for nurses

In February 2015, my editorial focused on issues related to big data in nursing. Featured at the ANA Quality Conference that month, it focused on nursing issues we’d…

Breath at the belly

Mindfulness training can help nurses, patients, and loved ones cope with loss, grief, and suffering.
COVID-19 care innovations worth keeping

Bright spots for the new year

COVID-19 care innovations worth keeping. We’ve lived through three waves of COVID-19 and learned from each one. New ways to care grew out of necessity, many of which…

Celebrating the art and science of nursing

The day before undergoing lifesaving, high-risk surgery, a young woman sat with her fiancé by her side. The charge nurse, who learned that they wanted to tie the…

Characteristics of nursing excellence

What’s behind Magnet®-recognized organizations? By Lillee Gelinas, MSN, RN, CPPS, FAAN I’ve learned a lot through the years about the characteristics of healthcare organizations whose nursing excellence is evident,…
climate change and health

Climate change and health

We’re not the only species being impacted.  Tina M. Marrelli My husband and I have been involved in Sea Turtle Patrol for decades. We walk assigned beaches of…

Connecting leadership at the bedside to improvement

Now more than ever, the U.S. healthcare industry realizes that public scrutiny, payer analysis, and heightened government oversight are shining a laser-beam focus on patient outcomes that result…

COVID-19 is here to stay

Lost in the crush of headlines focused on many other important news topics is the persistence and recent resurgence of COVID-19. New data, as of August 2024, warn…
Critical Caring

Critical Caring

The importance of nursing to patient well-being is a time honored concept, but often difficult to measure. If it were so easy to quantify, we would stop debating…

Differentiating the unique work of nurses

In 2021, I advocated for the use of unique nurse identifiers to aid tracking nursing licensure across a nurse’s career as they change jobs and locations, and also…
lillee gelinas

Do salary surveys matter?

Research shows that hospitals with better nurse staffing and work environments have better outcomes. For you, that means less burnout, more job satisfaction, and less desire to quit…

Do you have a mentor?

5 factors to consider when choosing a mentor Lillee Gelinas Editor’s note: Occasionally, something from the past speaks to the present (and the future). This April 2020 column…
Dress code

Dress codes matter!

October’s article “What works: Implementing an evidence-based nursing dress code to enhance professional image” (http://goo.gl/z0frxu) got me thinking about dress codes and how important this topic is to…
nurse patient skilled staff nurse

Editorial

I always loved taking care of patients. It was fun, exciting, intellectually stimulating, and rewarding. To this day, I remember special patients and keep in touch with the…

Editorial

To achieve higher quality of care and help transform our healthcare system, we need to don our customized tool belts, get to work, and be willing to abandon…
Ending the crisis

Ending the crisis

Think Tank proposes short-term actions for improved staffing.  To call the nurse staffing shortage a crisis in no way exaggerates the situation. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses…

Falling forward: Why is it so hard?

  Yes, I’m talking about falls here! Why is it so hard to take what we KNOW, and make it what we DO? We know best practices, we…

Feeling overwhelmed?

Try replacing busyness with critical habits. I DON’T THINK the title of the song “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer” is accurate. Your days, like mine, may be hazy…

Fraud alert

The predatory journal explosion over the past few years has now infiltrated the conference arena. You should know how to recognize a legitimate conference versus a bogus one.…
Unifying our approach to bullying, incivility, and violence

From #MeToo to #UsToo

Unifying our approach to bullying, incivility, and violence  Lillee Gelinas How long have we been talking about the chronic problem of workplace violence, bullying, and incivility? I’ve written…

From dream to reality

Appreciative inquiry can give your organization a fresh approach to change. In this affirmative process, everyone’s opinions, thoughts, and ideas count.

Future forward: I am data

It’s always exciting to see nursing and nursing practice on the national stage at events like the ANA 2015 Quality Conference earlier this month. Conference theme makers got…
future-nursing-2020-203-report

Future of Nursing 2020-2030 Report

Good for you, good for the profession The recently released National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, The Future of Nursing 2020–2030: Charting a Path to Achieve…
genomics and precision health

Genomics and precision health

Looking into the future At the June 2021 American Nurses Association (ANA) Membership Assembly, we discussed an important topic that many of us know little about: genomics and…
pay foward gift giving

Gifts that keep on giving

December turns our hearts and minds to the holiday season. We juggle work time and family demands to prepare for holiday celebrations. We reflect on the diversity of…

Giving thanks

The best gifts frequently are the smallest. Lillee Gelinas Nurses and the nursing profession enjoy many expressions of gratitude nationally and internationally. The World Health Organization celebrates International…

Guns and nurses

The ambush shootings in downtown Dallas last July, which killed five police officers and wounded seven other people, cast a spotlight on gun violence yet again. This and other…
safe patient handling

Handle with care

In 2005, the State of Texas passed the first safe patient handling law. SB 1525 became effective January 1, 2006. Since then there’s been a lot of attention…
dirty cellphone

How dirty is your cellphone?

You wash your hands…maybe you should clean your phone PATIENT SAFETY AWARENESS WEEK is March 10-16, 2019. Are you aware of these facts? Preventable medical errors are the…

Improving health care with systems thinking

We strive to reach the theoretical goal of perfect patient care. But is defect-free health care possible? Or are avoidable deaths from preventable errors inevitable? Sociologist and organizational theorist Charles Perrow describes…
improving patient safety care

Improving patient safety wherever care occurs

Nurses, providers, and pharmacists collaborate to improve patient safety. By Lillee Gelinas, MSN, RN, CPPS, FAAN Patient safety is critical to quality care. Since the publication of the…

Innovations to keep patients and nurses safe

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, PhD, safety expert and Johns Hopkins University professor, predicts that “the next waves of innovation will focus on improving how people interact with one another…
welcome issue first introduce ant american nurse today

Introducing the new voice of nurses

Welcome to the premier issue of American Nurse Today—the official journal of the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the new voice for today’s nurses in all specialties and…
Invisible injuries, invisible patients

Invisible injuries, invisible patients

Are we asking the right questions?  Lillee Gelinas In this month’s issue of American Nurse Journal, Andrea Kossoudji and Julie Scott introduce us to an important issue—the awareness…

It’s alarming – Nurse Fatigue

Have you become desensitized to alarms? I stepped onto an elevator with three other people, their eyes glued to their phones. Just as the doors were about to…

It’s All Pro Nursing Team awards season

American Nurse Journal conducts the annual All Pro Nursing Team Awards to provide nursing teams from any setting with the opportunity to describe projects focused on patient safety,…

Keep your resolutions simple

Make them realistic and achievable. Lillee Gelinas Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? Are they realistic? Measurable? Even doable? The history of making resolutions each year…

Keys to understanding long COVID

Unlock the mystery to a clinical challenge. Do you know someone with long COVID? I do. As a result, I’m trying to understand it as much as possible,…

Layoffs: Is the sky really falling?

The last several months of economic upheaval bring back memories of the 1980s and 1990s when many organizations reduced their workforces in anticipation of payment changes. In the…
listening caring competency

Listening as a caring competency

Effective listening can make you a better nurse. WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be fully present when listening to someone or trying to observe his or her behavior?…
Magnet

Magnetic moments

The 2015 American Nurses Credentialing Center’s (ANCC) National Magnet Conference® was held in October, but I have no doubt that the positive impact of this international assembly of…

Make an impact in 2023 and beyond

If common sense were really common, we wouldn’t have to keep repeating ourselves. This year’s National Nurses Month theme is “You Make a Difference.” Of course, we already…

Making resolutions, making meaningful changes

Did you make a New Year’s resolution? If so, how’s your resolve holding up? According to researchers, after 1 month, 75% of resolutions are being kept. The number…

Meaningful use is a workforce issue

As you’re probably aware, meaningful use refers to use of electronic health record (EHR) technology to improve the quality and effectiveness of patient care. The Centers for Medicare…
_Mentoring_Gelinas

Mentoring for cultural awareness

Make a commitment to self-awareness. According to the American Nurses Association (ANA) definition, mentoring is a one-to-one, long-term relationship between a novice and an experienced nurse that promotes…

Mindfulness and AI

Combine technology and practical interventions to reduce burnout. Lillee Gelinas This month’s article about burnout by Jocelyn Perez, MSN, RN, PCCN (see Nurse Burnout) reminded me of a…

My brain is on overload… How about yours?

The antidote to the overworked brain. Lately, I find myself regularly and voluntarily distracted and not because I’m multitask­ing. I’m being “multi-informed” through a bombardment of information coming…
nurse suicide breaking silence

Nurse suicide: Breaking the silence

More research and awareness are needed. The recent sudden deaths of fashion designer Kate Spade and TV host Anthony Bourdain have propelled the topic of suicide into the headlines.…
florence nightingale

Nurses Month: A time for celebration

Inspire and be inspired. Nurses Month shines a spotlight on nurses—those who devote their lives to caring for others. This year, it couldn’t come at a better time…

Nurses rise to the challenge

Lessons learned and shared The past 12 months have challenged the nursing profession like never before. Appropriately deemed the Year of the Nurse by the World Health Organization,…
eliminate preventable harm

Nursing care: The quest to eliminate preventable harm

Defining the value of nursing AS PART OF OUR NURSING PRACTICE, we engage in critical thinking, prioritize patient needs, communicate with other members of the interprofessional healthcare team,…

Nursing’s voice and influence

Use it or lose it. Lillee GelinasI applaud the continuing efforts of the nursing profession to improve and expand nursing’s influence and impact on education, evidence-based practice, equity,…
Gelinas_Future-nurse-in-2021

Our future through my review mirror

Turn the troubling events of 2020 into opportunities in 2021. 2020 is finally over! It was a meaningful year because we had the opportunity to celebrate The Year…
heritage future celebrate nursing

Our heritage, our future: Why we celebrate nursing

The global community stands together to honor nursing’s important role. Every year, someone asks, “Why single out nurses for a weeklong celebration? Every profession should be celebrated.” Usually…

Overcoming misinformation and disinformation

Spreading falsehoods is a threat to nursing practice and patient safety. Lillee Gelinas How do you learn information, both true and false? How do you know the difference?…

Pam Cipriano’s lifetime achievement award

Given all the trials and tribulations endured by healthcare professionals during the pandemic, the recognition of frontline nurses and nursing leaders was, for me, incredibly gratifying. Almost every…

Parting gifts

Our time in this life is perhaps the most important gift we enjoy.
passion motivator job career

Passion – the ultimate motivator

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a nurse. No one in my family had any occupational connection with healthcare. After starting college en route to becoming a…

Patient assignment vs. nurse staffing: More than just numbers

For more than 15 years, I’ve been advocating for healthcare leaders to replace the term “opinion-based” with “evidence-based.” Too often, I’ve heard, “In my opinion, we should do the following.” Whether the speaker…

Patient safety awareness

How do we create a mindset focused on safety? Patient Safety Awareness Week is March 14-20. Its importance can’t be emphasized enough. In addition to the high mortality…
patient safety awareness week

Patient Safety Awareness Week

Shining a light on a public health crisis Each year, an important event is nationally recognized but frequently overshadowed by our busy lives: Patient Safety Awareness Week. Seven…

Professionalism

Practicing decency in a fast-paced world. Lillee Gelinas Decency. The social respect and professionalism that bind us together as nurses. But I’m beginning to think that there isn’t…

Professionals, pyramids, and Peter Pan

If only it were this simple: Nurses get 8 hours of sleep every night, perfect work schedules are in place with all shifts filled by competent staff, and there’s…
physical wellness energy ant

Promoting clinician well-being

Staying emotionally healthy is important to personal and patient safety. Takeaways:  Burnout affects more than half of nurses, physicians, and other healthcare providers.  To reduce risks of burnout,…
ready for what's next?

Ready for what’s next?

Find the job you don’t have yet.  Lillee Gelinas As healthcare evolves, so do nursing roles. In many ways, the pandemic intensified the focus on addressing already existing…
ringing new year

Ringing in the new year

New look for American Nurse Today, new ANA leadership ANOTHER YEAR has gone by, and new excitement is afoot. From new section titles in American Nurse Today to new…

Robotic nurses: No substitute for real RNs

For the past decade, care innovation has exploded with new tools and technology. Keeping up with all of the new devices and gadgets available to ease caregiver burden…

Sacred cow round-up

Evidence-based nursing practice obliges us to embrace innovation and let go of our sacred cows.

Safe patient handling and mobility

There’s no such thing as “safe lifting” when nurses use their bodies as the lifting system! When I attended nursing school, we learned about “safe body mechanics,” which…

Safe patient handling and mobility: A call to action

To avoid injuring their patients and themselves, healthcare providers must get in the habit of using safe patient handling and mobility (SPHM) technology. In this supplement, national experts…

Safeguard patient safety in a refugee crisis

What I learned at the International Council of Nurses Congress 2023 Lillee Gelinas As an experienced healthcare executive and patient safety advocate, my passion lies in creating safer…

Save a life-wash your hands

Did you grow up with your mother insisting you wash your hands? She was right! As nurses, we all know that the simple act of washing our hands…
Covid-19

Second thoughts about second thoughts

Step back to discover what we’ve learned.  Lillee Gelinas I’ll never forget March 12, 2020. That’s when the pandemic became real for me and my organization. Clinical operations…

Seeing Red

American Heart Month is a time to celebrate the wealth of information that if acted on, can help prevent cardiovascular disease.

Shared calling: Then and now

May is a wonderful month, with so many celebrations to enjoy and share, including Mother’s Day, National Nurses Week, Florence Nightingale’s birthday, Armed Forces Day, and Memorial Day.…

Shhhhhh! Quiet zone

Nurses play a significant role in helping patients to get the sleep they need.
nursing shortage

Shortage solutions

ANA, partners develop detailed road map for better staffing.  News headlines about the nurse staffing shortage portray an extreme event placing enormous stress on nurses and our healthcare…

SiCKO – A call to action

In 1991, the American Nurses Association published its Nursing Agenda for Health Care Reform, which gained the support of 76 nursing and healthcare organizations. It called for a…

Size matters—or does it?

In sports, we often hear the saying “Size matters.” Usually, it means the bigger and stronger athlete triumphs. But sometimes, the smaller and seemingly weaker one may have the advantage…
sparking change nursing ant

Sparking change in nursing

Successful change requires new skills and levels of understanding. I recently spent an invigorating day with several nurses and clinical leaders from a diverse group of hospitals in…
UNI

Special and unique: You

Using a unique nurse identifier recognizes your contributions to quality patient care. Intelligent systems surround us. They include automated robotic vacuums to clean floors, facial recognition programs to…
Evidence Based practice

Stop the slide

Drifting back to old practices endangers the profession.  Before COVID-19, healthcare and nursing performance were moving in the right direction. Turnover was slowing, healthy work environments were becoming…
covid-19 virus illustration

Superbugs trump wonder drugs

Our grandparents’ generation first witnessed the wonders of antimicrobial agents. These drugs saved millions of lives and rendered harmless a number of previously untreatable fatal illnesses. But their…

Tailored falls prevention plans

Nurses make significant contributions to patients’ experiences, safety, and healing. Today, with such a strong evidence base in place to demonstrate the correlation between nursing care and patient…

Telling our story

The public needs a better understanding of what nurses do, so tell your story.
How do you handle a bullying doctor?

Temper tantrums at work

How do you handle a bullying doctor?  Most nurses have witnessed or been the victims of doctor bullying. I know I have. What drives a clinician to fly…

The disappearing inpatient

As hospital admissions shrink, nursing jobs are shiftingto other areas, such as outpatient offices, clinics, postacute facilities, and home care.

The economic power of care

The International Council of Nurses released a report that combines evidence from economists and other renowned experts to demonstrate the contribution nurses and nursing can make to global…

The elusive cure

Supporting breast cancer research and screening can help us get another step closer to curing this disease.

The Grinch and “grumpy staying”

“Grumpy staying,” a workforce trend cited as a characteristic of some in the workplace, refers to high-potential employees who are dissatisfied with their jobs but choose to stay…
Nursing Shortage

The nursing shortage

This one is different  We all talk about the nursing shortage. In fact, we’ve been experiencing it for decades. However, the current shortage has evolved into something different…

The oxycodone epidemic: Up close and personal

Prescription drug abuse and diversion is a silent epidemic touching thousands of lives and tearing apart families all across America. For my family, it’s personal. Reading about it…

The power and impact of nursing

It’s National Nurses Week. American Nurse Journal’s celebration focuses on four elements—education, teamwork and collaboration, quality bedside care, and compassion—that are foundational to creating individual nurses who respond…

The Power of inspiration

Celebrating nurses with words and actions How did you spend National Nurses Week? I asked this question of nurses who work in my organization, the University of North…

The pressure is on

Pressure ulcers are painful, life-threatening, and expensive —with medical costs of up to $11 billion annually in the United States. Medicare and private insurers know they’re largely preventable…

The voice of the consumer

This month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) begin reporting patient experience data from its Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS®) program. The first…
Time for change

Tide of change

Report calls on nursing to confront and eradicate racism.  Racism: “Assaults on the human spirit in the form of biases, prejudices, and an ideology of superiority that persistently…
hope change good

Tomorrow’s Hope

Twice a year, I meet with the new graduates in my hospital and am encouraged by their expectations and their questions. They expect to engage in meaningful work…

Updated Code of Ethics for Nurses released

To apply the new Code, actively incorporate the core principles of patient-centered care, advocacy, professional responsibility, ethical decision-making, and self-care into your daily interactions with patients, colleagues, and…

Valentines and kindness

The power of positivity through compassion and smiles February brings us Valentine’s Day. It’s a day that always makes me smile. I have so many positive memories about…
nursing, nurses month, american nurse, healthcare journal

Vital and invaluable

Recognizing nurses’ service during Nurses Month. Ernest J. Grant May marks Nurses Month, a time to offer RNs nationwide well-deserved thanks and recognition for all they do and…

Wait for the new or consider the old?

So much has been written about the nursing shortage and staffing issues that unraveling it boggles the mind. Healthcare delivery complexity makes focusing on individual problems and finding…
nurses' experience

Walk a mile in a nurse’s shoes

Redefining the physician–nurse relationship.  Traditionally, physician–nurse relationships have been viewed as superior–subordinate. Despite clinical work environment advances that demonstrate teamwork and interprofessional collaboration, power hierarchies still exist. However,…

We’re listening to you

Responses from nurse managers and clinical nurses help us all better understand important issues, such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing and how it appears…
metoo nurse ant

What #MeToo means for nurses

The #MeToo movement has taken the world by storm, and many say it’s been a long time coming. The New York Times revelation last fall seemed shocking at…
what does an rn look like

What does an RN look like?

What nurses can learn from the uniforms and ceremonies of other healthcare professions. “WHAT DOES AN RN LOOK LIKE?”When I was asked that question by a student, I…
hurricane season harvey ant

What I learned during the 2017 hurricane season

I watched with great pain the damage, and for many the devastation, created by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. I was reliving August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed…

What’s the future of AI-assisted nursing?

AI can assist in real-time to provide decision support for accurate patient assessment and treatment plans, thereby improving the precision and speed of care, especially in critical care…

When COVID-19 strikes home

My personal story The pandemic’s impact on frontline caregivers has captured headlines and hearts for months. I read as many as I can to understand how others manage…

When it’s my time to die

Failing to make our end-of-life wishes known to others can deny us and our loved ones important choices.
Metrics

Why should we care? Metrics that matter

In my December editorial, I discussed dress codes for nurses and why they matter. In response, several readers asked me if I’d consider writing a series of editorials…

Work/life balance? Yes, please!

The young nurses now entering our profession have a lot to teach us veterans about the value of balancing work and home life.

Workplace violence: A nurse tells her story

It’s not okay, and it is a big deal. By Lillee Gelinas, MSN, RN, CPPS, FAAN “Personal boundary violation is not part of our job description. That statement…

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