Nurses And Nursing Continuing Education

Many people assume that after a nurse has completed her schooling and become registered, then that’s it, she would not need to bother with any extra learning, she simply will get on with taking care of sufferers and soothing fevered brows.

Nothing may very well be further from the reality, a nurse guaranteeing her nursing persevering with education is saved up to date is essential, and is an integral part of sustaining her registration.

A nurse’s life within the twenty first century could be very fast paced. As drugs and surgical procedures advances and improves, it is her obligation to ensure she keeps to the forefront of any major changes and improvements. This may be very difficult especially when she is working very long hours on the wards and clinics. And making certain her nursing continuing education is saved updated is less complicated stated than done.

A great hospital will ensure they supply every thing needed for nurses to proceed their nursing persevering with education. They should also ensure the training and training a registered nurse wants is supplied free of charge. This ensures a lack of funds does not prevent any registered nurse from using the excuse that they may not afford to access the schooling needed for his or her nursing persevering with education.

Buying nursing periodicals and magazines are a superb manner for registered nurses to maintain updated with their nursing persevering with education. Proving they have learn articles in related journals is crucial though.

One of the best ways they will achieve this proof is by protecting a portfolio wherein they will doc all of the training and training they’ve obtained since their registration. In the event that they write a synopsis of the article within the nursing journal they’ve read, and make a comment of what they’ve learnt from reading the article, they are then showing proof of their dedication to their ongoing nursing persevering with education.

One downside with accessing some forms of further schooling is the expense. Nursing isn’t one of many higher paid professions, and for many individuals higher ranges of qualifications equivalent to a level are sometimes out of attain purely because the nurse cannot afford to entry the courses. The sort of nursing continuing training should grow to be more accessible to nurses, with maybe the employer funding courses for the registered nurses of their employ.

Nurses care just as good as doctors, study says

The next time you have the flu or back pain, would you consider going to a nurse rather than a doctor? How about for chest pains?

More and more people are deciding they prefer nurse practitioners to doctors and new research concludes that a nurse's care is just as good and sometimes better.

Some nurses think they have it all, over doctors, "Our approach is that our patient is the head of our health care team and we listen to them." Bob Smithing is a nurse practitioner at Family Care of Kent. The clinic has operated for more than 25 years and has no doctors.

"Most of what we take care of is the primary care types of things such as diabetes, hypertension, birth control, shortness of breath." Smithing said these are all conditions doctors normally treat.

The results of a study done by Johns Hopkins University finds that care given by nurses with advanced training, such as Smithing, is comparable in quality, safety and effectiveness to the care of doctors.

"This survey reinforces what we've seen coming out for the past 50 years, which is the care that is provided by nurse practitioners is excellent care and that our patients benefit from seeing a nurse practitioner," said Smithing. But he doesn't use the findings to denigrate doctors.

"Physicians are an integral part of a health care team," Smithing said. "I could no more take care of my patients without specialty physicians than I could take care of them without my stethascope."

You might say to yourself, 'It's risky to see a nurse specialist rather than a doctor because the nurse might miss something.'

But Smithing said not to worry. "We're not reluctant to call in help and ask for assistance. Our training emphasizes that if you don't know something - ask, rather than you must know everything," he reassured.

The Johns Hopkins study finds that nurse specialists have also lowered medical costs and reduced unnecessary hospital stays.

Doctor Aaron Katz, at the UW's Department of Health Services, said specialty nurses are a mainstay of health care. However it doesn't mean you can see a nurse specialist for every problem. "Rather that there are a group of patients with certain types of medical problems that care can be just as good."

The Affordable Care Act will require health coverage for millions more Americans.

"There's a lot of concern that all of those newly insured people are going to seek medical services now that they have insurance and that we don't have enough capacity in the health care system to serve them," said Katz.

Smithing agrees with researchers who suggest that demand should increase for nurse practitioners. "We're going to need a lot more primary care providers. Nurse practitioners, nurse midwives can fill that bill."

It can be less expensive to see a nurse practitioner, but not always. Smithing said with any health care provider, trust can be as important as any other factor is your choice of a caregiver.

It's sometimes said that nurses are doctor wannabes, but Smithing said nurses want to be nurses but they also want the right to practice to the full extent of their training.

Patients benefit from nurse prescribing

Patients have improved access to medication and are sticking to their medication regimes better since the introduction of nurse prescribing in Ireland, a new survey reveals.

The research, carried out by the School of Nursing and Midwifery at University College Cork, shows that nurse prescribing has been an innovative and welcome addition to the role of the Irish nurse, which has led to an improvement in patient satisfaction.

To date, 631 nurses and midwives have undertaken the HSE-funded nurse prescribing programme nationally. They are employed in 78 different clinical areas from primary to tertiary care within the health service.

The first cohort of qualified nurse prescribers in Ireland was registered in January 2008. Prospective nurse prescribers must complete an approved six-month course and adhere to a set of practice standards and competencies for prescribing.

Rena Creedon, nurse prescribing programme co-ordinator at UCC, said: “Nurse prescribing is in its infancy in Ireland, however, professional boundaries are already being redefined with nursing roles having an ever increasing responsibility.”

Nurses surveyed reported that being able to prescribe was a great benefit, particularly for patients with chronic disease and pregnant women.

One of the main barriers identified by the survey participants was the extra administration load associated with nurse prescribing.

The survey results were presented at an interdisciplinary conference on nurse and midwife prescribing hosted by the Departments of Nursing, Pharmacy and Medicine and the College of Medicine and Health at UCC on Friday last.

3 Major Factors that Improve a Healthcare Supply Chain

3 Major Factors That Must Be Analyzed to Drive Healthcare’s Supply Chain to the Next Level

1. Major Consumption Trends:  Major consumption variations add significant, previously unknown needs for the supply of products, caused by epidemics like influenza or SARS, terrorist attacks or radically unique major incidents as almost every country of the world comes to experience.

2. Risk Factor Analysis:  Material supply interruptions on any level from raw material to finished product caused by operational problems, strikes, or unexpected wars in nations like Georgia.

3. Variations in Delivery:  Manufacturing variations stop product from proceeding to the customer in an orderly and timely manner when plants experience operational or compliance problems.

Each of these measures may yield value-added service opportunities to improve the customer experience. Additional capacity in manufacturing and transportation, flexibility of multiple plants for multiple products, storage capacity, or preparedness for alternative transportation modes may indicate areas of improvement.

A robust product supply can be calculated as additional expenditures over the costs. Knowing the value of the expense impact of the various requirements will drive further efforts in the continuous improvement program. The outlay for the total supply effort will become less, and the benefits are well worth the assiduous activities to accomplish the end results.

The result of the detailed supply chain analysis can be offered to the customers who will have a tendency to agree on pricing models acknowledging the service levels.

Approaching new contracts with a three-step mindset will allow customer and suppliers to clearly understand the impact of the range of services and products required for total supply chain expenditures.

The 3 Steps You Must Take to Get Your Supply Chain to the Next Level

1. Develop an essential supply chain model as best in class operations implementing the demand-pull system.

2. Generate advanced contingency models with defined levels of supply robustness.

3. Create clarity of the costs of various supply requirements for customers and suppliers to define the actual supply chain requirements and minimize the costs.

10 Ways to Help Nurses Improve Patient Satisfaction

Improving patient satisfaction is a financial imperative. Nurses are on the frontline of patient interaction and can make or break the patient experience. So why do we make it so hard for them to have positive interactions with patients?

Here are 10 changes to nurse procedures and working conditions that would improve patient experience. Some are simple, others more complex, all are effective.

1. Scripting: Many fear that scripting means fast food restaurant–type rote responses. In fact, it’s a useful tool when handled correctly. Scripting empowers nurses with tools to make their communication with patients easier. Regular discussion and training about patient interactions ensures nurses know what is expected. A scripting example: the hospital expects that all nurses will introduce and identify themselves and their professional credentials to new patients, and explain the treatment regimen. Scripting gives nurses tools for handling issues such as delayed procedures and lost test results. It also gives them tools for difficult situations such as deescalating angry patients.

2. Supplies: Keep frequently needed supplies in patient rooms and restock regularly. Maintain a multitude of stockrooms and supply cupboards and don’t make nurses walk miles to track them down. It’s frustrating for patients and staff when nurses have to stop what they are doing to track down supplies.

3. Uniforms: In many hospitals, RNs are indistinguishable to patients from the people delivering their meal trays. Consider choosing a defined scrub color for RNs to ensure that patients know who they can talk to and who is looking out for them.

4. Hourly rounding: Make a commitment to hourly rounding, and you will see patient satisfaction go up and call bell usage go down. Patients feel better when they know someone will be in to check on them within an hour. Alternating visits between RNs and nursing assistants ensures that the time commitment is manageable – and helps both groups plan their workflows since they no longer will spend so much time running after constant call lights.

5. Sitting down: Something as simple as sitting down when talking with patients can make a huge difference in satisfaction scores. Sitting down at the bedside implies that the nurse has time for the patient and is actively interested in the conversation.

6. Patient education: Make time for patient education. Nurses are pulled in a thousand different ways and often feel obligated to complete patient education as quickly as possible. But this time spent one-on-one means so much to patients. We know that patients often are too overwhelmed or intimidated to process information provided by physicians during initial diagnosis or post-procedure, and they look to nurses for easy-to-understand translation of difficult or complicated news. Put a value on this time with patients so that nurses will prioritize it.

7. Bedside report: Instead of conducting report at the nurse’s station or break room, do it at the bedside. Patients should be empowered to take an active part in their care. Increase their autonomy by discussing report in their presence and encouraging their involvement.

8. Nurse-led initiatives: Don’t simply hand down service improvement programs from above and tell nurses what to do. Programs driven by nurses have ready-made support and are often much more effective. Nurses will be more engaged in improving patient satisfaction when they develop ideas themselves and are accountable for success or failure.

9. Nurse empowerment: Nurses with autonomy over their practices provide better patient care. Ensure that the nurse practice council is robust and able to make decisions about clinical practice. Empower a nurse staffing committee to make decisions about safe patient care.

10. Demonstrate caring: According to Gallup polls, nurses are the most trusted professionals in the country. People can relate to nurses, whereas physicians can be intimidating to ordinary patients. The best patient satisfaction scores happen when patients feel genuinely cared for and cared about. Most nurses do this automatically. They bring an extra blanket or sit down and hold a patient’s hand for a few short minutes to provide comfort. Value these small details and recognize them publicly so that nurses know these parts of their role are just as important as the rest.