12 Nurses Who Changed History

There’s no doubt that nurses play a significant role in our daily lives. Whether we pay a visit to the emergency room, see our general practitioner or send our child to school, a nurse is right there offering their perfect blend of nurturing presence and medical know-how.

Among the many nurses that change lives every day are some who managed to change the course of the nation and world. Let’s take a look at 12 nurses who have done just that.

1. Christiane Reimann

Christiane Reimann was recognized for her many contributions to the nursing field, one of which was becomingthe first full-time executive secretary to the International Council of Nurses. While she retired in 1934 to manage a farm, she continued to get recognized and even had an award listed in her name.

2. Clara Barton

Clara Barton was no ordinary nurse. She was known as the "Angel of the Battlefield" during the Civil War and assigned special duties by President Lincoln. But one of her greatest triumphs was helping the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War, which led to her organizing what we know today as the American Red Cross.

3. Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix had a tough beginning, being victimized early in life by her alcoholic family and abusive father. After fleeing the home at the age of 12, she taught poor and neglected children, dedicatedher time to social welfare in England, founded the first public mental hospital in America and became the Superintendent of Union Army Nurses.

4. Edith Cavell

During World War I, Edith Cavell, an English Nurse, worked as the head of a nursing school and Red Cross hospital. She aided in the escape of over 200 allied soldiers from occupied territory, which resulted in her arrest and execution.

5. Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was one of the most famous nurses in history due to her sanitation improvements during the Crimean War that led to increased nurse and doctor training. Her efforts also resulted in the formation of the Army Medical College and Nightingale School and Home for Nurses.

6. Helen Fairchild

While Helen Fairchild is one of the lesser-known figures in nursing history, she is one of the most important. She was a nurse in the World War I, volunteering for the American Expeditionary Force that helped over 2,000 fallen soldiers. Unfortunately, her time was cut short due to a mustard gas bombing and a severe ulcer.

7. Jeanne Prentice

Jeanne Prentice is a modern nurse who works to protect a mother’s right to choose a licensed professional to supervise home births. She currently leads the "PUSH!" initiative that pushes to allow Certified Nurse Midwives to participate in unattended home births rather than licensed physicians.

8. Margaret Sanger

Originally a nurse for the underprivileged in New York’s Lower East Side, Margaret Sanger’s realization that unplanned pregnancies were worse in these conditions convinced her to leave the nursing field to promote the use of birth control. As a result, she worked diligently to form the World Population Conference in 1927 and the Planned Parenthood Federation in 1942.

9. Mary Breckinridge

Mary Breckinridge is recognized for being the first to found family care centers and develop a new model of rural healthcare. She first founded the Frontier Nursing Service then spread her centers around the United States to help others in scarce areas get medical care.

10. Mary Eliza Mahoney

Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American professional registered nurse. Working to provide good service to all patients, in 1908 she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (later the American Nurses Association) to help other nurses of color get into the profession.

11. Mary Seacole

Born in Jamaica, Mary Seacole taught basic remedies and tropical herbal medicine that she learned from her mother. Wanting to help during the Crimean War, and being passed over by Florence Nightingale, she used her own money to travel to Crimea and treat wounded soldiers. Working as a rare biracial nurse in the 19^th century, she is often revered as an "unsung hero" of the war.

12. Virginia Avenel Henderson

Virginia Avenel Henderson was a graduate of the Army School of Nursing and received her M.A. in nursing education from Columbia University. However, it was her development of nursing theory (i.e. nurses should aid everyone in the quest for better overall health) that helped her win the label of the"First Lady of Nursing."

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Leads the Way in Clinical Inventory Valuations

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), announced that it has valued over $1.5 billion worth of clinical supplies, becoming the clear leader in clinical inventory valuation. Having conducted thousands of "on-the-shelf" assessments, MHS has now amassed the most comprehensive reference data base in the industry, including more than 500,000 items, comprised of actual, active clinical items currently in-use within MHS client hospitals. This clean, structured content provides MHS leverage to support Inventory Management and Content Cleansing projects, quickly enabling clients to confidently analyze and optimize their clinical items and suppliers.

With a powerful combination of technology, processing and people, MHS has created a laser focus on optimizing the flow of clinical supplies to deliver huge savings to hospitals and health systems. Employing state-of-the-art technology ranging from hand-held data collection devices to bar code scanners that record usage, MHS recommends and helps implement automated approaches that improve operational efficiency and accuracy throughout the clinical supply chain.

Capitalizing on years of data cleansing and systems integration experience, MHS uniquely specializes in enabling hospitals to gain superior control over one of the largest and most sensitive expense areas, clinical supplies. In a typical hospital, 80% of the inventory value is tied up in the clinical areas. Yet it is often the hardest to trace and control because these high-end supplies are critical to important procedures in which doctors and nurses are very engaged and not managed by supply chain experts. MHS maps current processes and identifies break downs and opportunities to make seamless connections that yield not only savings but higher clinical staff satisfaction as a result of better accuracy and reliability.

MHS prides itself on bringing industry experts onto every assignment. Point-in-time inventories are conducted by specially-trained staff, experienced staff. Leaders at MHS have years of healthcare and data management experience bringing best practices and integration know-how to even the most complex situations.

"MHS has built software, systems and human expertise to help hospitals optimize the entire clinical supply process in order to realize meaningful and sustained savings," said Bill Zierolf, Chief Executive Officer of MHS. "Today there's more pressure than ever to cut costs without compromising the quality of patient care."

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Sponsors AHRMM Academic Webinar Series

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), the leading provider of clinical inventory services, is a presenting sponsor of the Association for Healthcare Resource and Materials Management (AHRMM) Academic Webinar series featuring six topical presentations being offered August through November of this year. The webinars focus on best practices and current trends in supply chain management. Topics covered range from "Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare Provider Adoption of GS1 Data Standards" to "Hospital Supply Chain Management in the Future Healthcare Landscape, and presenters include experts and leaders from top institutions including MIT, University of Arkansas and Arizona State University.

Management Health Solutions prides itself on taking a leading edge approach to optimizing clinical supply chain performance to help hospitals reduce cost without compromising quality. MHS recently introduced the OPTIC^SMsolution, a unique, end-to-end process that enables hospitals to maintain a flexible, yet tightly-controlled clinical supply flow that delivers operational efficiency and sustained savings.

"MHS is pleased to partner with AHRMM to make these very topical webinars available to hospital materials managers across the country who are grappling with how to improve their clinical supply processes in the face of increasing data and constant change," commented Bill Zierolf, Chief Executive Officer of MHS.

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Featured at Health Insights

 Management Health Solutions, Inc. is honored to be among 14 category leaders selected to present at the prestigious Health Insights Forum being held October 6 - 9th in Boston, Massachusetts. MHS co-founder and Executive Vice President of Sales, Ken Kelliher, will present their latest comprehensive service offering, OPTIC^SM the only flexible, three-step solution that reduces the cost of clinical supplies by establishing superior control over the complete clinical supply process. Founded in 1981, Health Insights is an invitation-only forum for Chief Executive Officers from many of the nation's major hospitals and health systems and the companies that support the industry.

Clinical supplies account for 80% of total inventory value in typical hospitals, and hospital executives are under more pressure than ever to reduce expenses without compromising patient care or satisfaction. MHS draws on extensive experience as a leading provider of clinical inventory services, working with some of the largest health systems in the nation to optimize performance throughout the supply process flow. Utilizing the latest automation technology, established best practices and reliable, data-driven insights, MHS helps hospitals achieve sustainable improvements in the clinical supply chain and significant cost savings.

"OPTIC is the only service that meets the demands of strained health systems that are trying to survive a constantly changing environment," said Bill Zierolf, President and CEO of MHS. "Other services rely on expensive materials management software which is dependent on proper data entry or standard inventory management strategies that don't take into account the problems unique to stocking clinical items. OptIC ensures that decisions are driven by accurate data, reflecting the actual clinical inventory that is on your hospital's shelves, resulting in smarter decisions."

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Enhances Inventory Reporting Capabilities

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), the leading provider of clinical inventory services, has announced enhancements to the company’s reporting capabilities. The enhanced reporting makes inventory data more easily accessible and gives hospitals more control over the clinical inventory supply process.

Data captured by the company’s Clinical Inventory Valuation is conveniently delivered through Management Health Solutions’ online reporting portal. Unlike many inventory service groups, MHS provides its clients with a complete inventory history through one secure, web-based application to deliver reports to decision-makers who rely on accurate, current data

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Standard reports delivered through the portal include summary and detailed location reports as well as items that do not match the Item Master or PO history. The interactive analytics feature provides custom reports to find an individual item or group of items from a manufacturer, area, or based on a description with multiple search criteria to search and sort across any attribute in the clinical inventory data.

Reports are subtotaled by area and include item-level detail and content drill down and can be exported to share with external applications. Additionally, the portal offers a user-friendly interface for simple file uploads and downloads, eliminating email file size constraints and complicated FTP transfers.

“Other companies inventory clinical supplies, but fail to deliver actionable data beyond total inventory value,” said Mark Pelletier, Director of Content Operation at MHS. “MHS enables hospitals to make smarter decisions about their clinical inventory in an environment that is constantly changing. With these added enhancements to our reporting capabilities we are able to solve a complex problem with a simple solution.”

Click here to view a demonstration of the portal »

About Clinical Inventory Valuation

MHS provides the most accurate point-in-time valuation of inventory for year-end reporting or perpetual inventory systems. Experienced teams identify and count supplies in clinical areas producing auditable information that is easy to compare across locations. MHS enables leaders to trim excess spending without compromising patient care or staff satisfaction.

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Announces Optimal Inventory ControlSM (OPTICSM) Solution

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), the leading provider of clinical supply chain solutions, announced today the launch of the company’s Optimal Inventory Control^SM (OPTIC^SM) Solution. OPTIC^SM is the only flexible, three-step solution that reduces the cost of clinical supplies through superior control over the clinical supply process. MHS draws on extensive experience working with leading health systems and detailed knowledge of the latest technologies, leading supply chain practices and implementation methodologies in its approach to the clinical supply inventory management process.

OPTIC^SM drives sustainable improvements in the clinical supply chain by identifying areas of weakness and implementing inventory management best-practices. By counting clinical supplies and analyzing clinical supply data, MHS is able to quantify reduction opportunities and identify excess and obsolete inventory positions. Inventory data is cleansed and maintained by ISO-certified content management experts to ensure clinical inventory data is reliable and drives smart decisions. Working with your data, MHS provides process improvement strategies by mapping the supply process flow and supports handheld technology automation to maintain PAR levels and drive re-ordering.

OPTIC^SM creates considerable cost reduction opportunities, including a significant reduction in hospitals’ inventory investment and supply spend, as well as increased utilization of existing IT investments. Identification of expired product increases patient safety and limits liability.

“OPTIC is the only existing service that meets the demands of strained health systems that are trying to succeed in a constantly changing environment,” said Bill Zierolf, President and CEO of MHS. “Other services rely on expensive materials management software which is dependent on proper data entry or standard inventory management strategies which don’t take into account the problems specific to stocking clinical items. OPTIC is driven by the clinical inventory that is on your hospital’s shelves so Materials Management and Finance can be sure that they are working with the best strategies and most accurate figures.”

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Expands Capital Asset Valuation Services

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS) the leading provider of physical inventory solutions to the healthcare industry, announced today that it would be expanding its Capital Asset Valuation (CAV) physical inventory services.

MHS offers hospitals and healthcare systems a comprehensive; feature rich inventory service product line.  Beginning with MHS’s Clinical Inventory Valuation (CIV) service and Clinical Pharmaceutical Valuation (CPV) MHS has become the change agent in the field of physical inventory services.  Using the most current technology and expert staff to complete the physical inventory, combined with a newly released interactive portal for flexible reporting and data analysis; MHS has now completed its overhaul of the physical inventory product line with the release of Capital Asset Valuation (CAV).

Capital Asset Valuation (CAV) provides a comprehensive, on-site inventory service to establish accurate capital asset records. MHS expert teams find, identify, and count capital asset inventory culminating in asset lists by area and deliver reports through an online portal to address a wide variety of site-specific requirements including the determination of current depreciated asset value. Assets can be tagged with barcodes or RFID tags as required by asset management systems for improved inventory control.

“Our clients are looking for a comprehensive solution for their entire inventory process at their facilities”, said William Zierolf, MHS CEO. “To addresses the needs of the industry, our clients and future clients MHS will be utilizing our expert staff and feature rich data reporting portal to help hospitals gain control over the large inventory dollar amount that the capital assets typically represent at any facility.” 

Experienced MHS personnel provide impartial, auditable results, with minimal disruption to hospital staff. Using the data from CAV, MHS is able to work with the hospital to review and enhance internal policies and procedures related to ongoing capital asset management functions. MHS’s knowledge of inventory management best-practices throughout the clinical supply chain ensures that improvements in capital asset strategies are made with attention to each hospital’s overall financial health and day-to-day operations.

Steven B. Epstein Joins Board of Management Health Solutions, Inc.

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), a leader in the field of physical inventory solutions, today announced that Steven B. Epstein, Esq., the founder of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., has joined the MHS Board of Directors.

Mr. Epstein, a graduate of Columbia Law School (L ’68), and founder of one of the leading law firms in health care law, Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., currently sits on the Boards of a number of other health care companies including Emergency Medical Services Corp. and Discovery Health. Widely recognized as a pioneer in health care law, Mr. Epstein provides a wide range of health care organizations and providers with strategic legal guidance responding to the legal challenges and opportunities of the rapidly changing American health care system.

“Our services focus on managing inventory processes, but improvements in the clinical supply chain effect areas beyond materials management,” said Bill Zierolf, President and CEO of MHS. “Steven’s comprehensive view of the many challenges facing hospitals helps us tailor our services to more effectively improve the hospital’s operational efficiency and realize significant savings.”

Management Health Solutions, Inc. Announces New Clinical Inventory Management Services

Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), a leading provider of clinical supply chain management solutions to the health care industry, announces new Clinical Inventory Management (CIM) services designed to enable hospitals to reduce inventory levels and supply spend of clinical supplies. With extensive experience in health care supply chain solutions, MHS experts help hospitals implement best practices and re-engineer processes to ensure maximum savings.

"MHS's Clinical Inventory Management services helps medical facilities optimize clinician time on patient care, reduce pick time and turnover time per procedure, and improve stocking and ordering efficiency," said Michael Ferris, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Operations for MHS. "By taking a holistic view and mapping the clinical supply process flow, MHS experts will identify inefficiencies and recommend fixes. This will enable executives to control clinical supply costs, one of the leading expense drivers in healthcare."

"Our Clinical Inventory Management services provides hospitals the ability to take a closer look at their clinical supply process to further reduce inventory expense. With laser focus on the clinical supply chain, MHS can unlock significant savings while improving operational efficiency," said Ferris.

Becoming a Nurse – What Does it Entail?

Nursing is a profession that’s being looked at with new eyes today – people are waking up the fact that nursing involves more than just patient care and long hours. There’s a demand for nurses in all areas of healthcare, from hospitals to schools to private homes. So if you’re considering becoming a nurse, now is a good time to join this industry because hiring is on the rise. However, before you take a final call on this decision, it’s best you know what the nursing profession entails:

• Nursing is a demanding job, one that requires you to spend long hours on your feet, keep erratic and long work hours, and put your patients before yourself. It’s not for everyone in that it could take a huge toll on you mentally and physically if you’re not cut out for it and ready to take the rough with the smooth.
• At the same time, it’s an immensely satisfying profession if you’re the kind who thrives on giving other people your time and effort and taking pride in their well-being.
• The educational qualifications required are not as demanding as going to medical school; however, your job status is not on par with that of doctors, even if you’re qualified academically and through experience as an advanced practice nurse.
• You have to start out at the bottom of the ladder and work your way to the top – any nursing job that’s higher up requires a few years of experience as an RN and additional education as qualifications.
• Most nurses who are ambitious choose to become advanced practice nurses by earning an MSN or a doctorate and becoming certified in the field of their choice; so you can choose to become a Nurse Practitioner, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, a Nurse Midwife or a Clinical Nurse Specialist. Nurse practitioners can become specialists in one of many areas of medicine including gerontology, neonatal care, pediatrics, oncology, acute care, critical care, women’s health, psychiatry, adult health, emergency medicine, and occupational healthcare.
• There are opportunities to move to non-clinical positions once you have a few years of experience under your belt and are willing to go back to school to pick up a few extra credentials – you could choose to go into administration, education (teaching), legal nursing, organization and planning (case nurse manager), and research. Some nurses with vast experience in the medical field even enter the pharma industry as consultants and administrators.
• If you love to travel and thrive on new places and new people, you could become a travel nurse.
• From RNs to advanced practice nurses, all nursing professions include continuous education and meeting the necessary conditions to stay certified throughout their career. Nursing is not a job where you can rest on your laurels or stagnate in the same spot.
• If you’re going back to school while continuing to work at your profession, remember that balancing a degree and the demands of a nursing career could become overwhelming and cause stress if you don’t have a good support system of friends and family.
• So if you’re considering becoming a nurse, plan ahead, and go ahead with what works for you instead of adopting herd mentality and following the crowd.

MHS Gains Traction with Wall-to-Wall Supply Chain Solutions

MHS Gains Traction with Wall-to-Wall Supply Chain Solutions
Comprehensive MHS technology helps hospitals match supply chain to patient care

(Fairfield, CT) Management Health Solutions (“MHS”), a leading, independent provider of supply chain optimization solutions for hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide, announced the launch of the industry’s only Wall-to-Wall technology expressly designed for hospital supply chain management. The MHS service offering, the most comprehensive available, leverages technologies – such as advanced bar coding, RFID, handheld scanners and sophisticated software – that give hospitals complete supply chain visibility and the ability to capture and bill the true cost of equipment and supplies employed at clinical Points-of-Use.

The comprehensive offering signals a further move by MHS to put into action its leading edge technologies and push further ahead into a market that has long recognized the importance of supply chain efficiency, yet has been unable to find suitable operational solutions. For example, many hospitals still log in products and supplies at each point in their supply chain using manual methods. These time consuming efforts are not integrated with a hospital’s central inventory system and do not provide real time visibility of inventory levels throughout the facility. Now, MHS has supplied hospitals with the means to eliminate this outdated process and raise supply chain management to the highest standard of contemporary patient care. Services such as MHS’ recent release of the RFID-enabled two-bin technology will eliminate the need for the counting process and data entry, optimizing inventory based on actual usage and minimizing clinician involvement in the supply process.

William Zierolf, President and Chief Executive Officer of MHS, says the company’s comprehensive offerings give it a leadership position in the industry. “We believe our Wall-to-Wall supply chain management technology furnishes hospitals with a critical boost in cost-savings and efficiency while putting MHS in a leadership position with a unique market opportunity,” said Zierolf.

Many of the nation’s top healthcare organizations utilize MHS services and solutions, among them Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West, Orlando Regional Medical Center, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, BJC Healthcare and Albany Medical Center, have contracted for MHS products.

Latest MHS Software Now Available to Hospitals Nationwide

2-Bin mobile supply chain software simplifies and automates supply chain tasks


Management Health Solutions ("MHS"), a leading, independent provider of supply chain optimization solutions for hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide, announced today that its proprietary 2-Bin Mobile Supply Chain Software is now available nationwide to hospitals and other healthcare facilities. The unique 2-Bin system, which marks the latest enhancement to the popular CartCount module, MHS's flagship par counting and par replenishment software application, utilizes radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to bring hospitals an advanced, easy-to-use par replenishment system that requires minimum user intervention for order generation and fulfillment.

The MHS 2-Bin technology is the solution to several difficult challenges faced by hospitals surrounding the modern healthcare supply chain. For example, the software eliminates the need for manual data input to the typical materials management information system (MMIS). Such a manual task traditionally creates inefficiencies and inaccuracies in the replenishment process. The new MHS technology also removes both the risk of stock-outs and use of expired products, and provides accurate data from real-time product turnover information for making prudent business decisions. In addition, it frees clinical staff from mundane tasks such as filling supply orders and enables that staff to return to more critical patient care functions.
"This RFID-based 2-Bin technology eliminates the need to inventory the locations for replenishment and significantly increases the accuracy of replenishment," says Kishore Bala, Vice President, Product Strategy for MHS.

To use the 2-Bin system, hospital personnel simply place the bins/tags in a smart bin/tag collection area based on the replenishment schedule defined by the system. There, the MHS software gathers the information and automatically posts requisitions to the facility's MMIS. For extra ease, a single Bin/RFID tag collection area may be configured to serve multiple locations in a department. Time elapsed from order to fulfillment can be tracked and reported to help build service level reports.To find out more about 2-Bin technology and other MHS products and services, see www.mhsinc.com.