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What works: Equitable nurse-patient assignments using a workload tool
One unit’s experience developing and implementing a process change.
Nurses on a 36-bed medical/surgical telemetry unit in a metropolitan hospital expressed frustration with their nursing workload. Many of them felt that the time needed to...
Moral space
Understanding the problems of living and dying.
A number of years ago, I was caring for a woman who had acute leukemia. She was being given one of the new, experimental chemotherapeutic agents. She was...
Key components for optimal staffing
New principles help make this complex goal attainable.
Nurse staffing is essential to the delivery of safe, quality healthcare in every practice setting. Nurses have a unique knowledge and understanding of how to respond to...
Shared decision making and patient-centered care
Engage patients in healthcare decisions to ensure patient autonomy.
Takeaways:
Patients should be actively involved in making decisions about their care.
Shared decision making is a process by which nurses help patients make informed healthcare...
Mentorship and collegiality
With all the recent conversations about ethics, mentorship has gained more prominence as the way professionals ought to interact with one another—and that includes all levels of the profession, from those with an associate...
Nurse and antimicrobial stewardship: Efforts are underway to address the looming crisis
Everyone knows the bad news: Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is common. The good news is that healthcare providers, public health organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health...
A look back—and ahead
Making progress on key priorities.
TIME FLIES—especially when you’re engaged in efforts you feel passionate about, working with people who are committed to making a difference, and enjoying yourself along the way. For the past...
Virtual reality: A strategy to improve patient-centered care
Technology can help nurses gain empathy and navigate difficult conversations.
Takeaways:
Extended reality (virtual, mixed, augmented) technology is rapidly expanding and finding a space in healthcare professional education.
The positive impact of these technologies are...
Rights and undocumented people
Legal rights, human rights—and claiming a right.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, legal rights, human rights, and claiming a right are all different matters, whether you’re undocumented or not. The easy definition of an undocumented person...
Improving patient outcomes and organizational financial health
The safe patient handling and mobility connection.
AS A NURSE, you play a pivotal leadership role in promoting a culture of safety for your patients and your coworkers. Patient harm events—such as pressure injuries (PIs)...
Nurses and assisted suicide
Should nurses have a role in this end-of-life choice?
A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, a close friend of mine died. She was in her 80s and had a serious but not imminently terminal problem—and she...
Supporting each other
American Nurses Foundation helps us tell our stories.
ONE MORNING not too long ago, I turned on the radio and heard two former intensive care unit staff nurses, now nurse educators, talking about their work....
What works: Managing opioid overdose in the community
Takeaways:
To help reduce the rise in opioid prescriptions, misuse, and overdose, healthcare professionals must improve their pain management knowledge, decrease opioid prescriptions as appropriate, and provide patients with the education and resources they...