Nursing
Posted in Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing News
A major strike took place in California yesterday, one of the largest in the history of Kaiser hospitals in the state. A total of about 22,000 people including about 4,000 mental and optical health care workers at Kaiser hospitals, plus thousands of registered Kaiser nurses in the California Nurses Union, staged a 24-hour walkout, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The mental health and optical workers were protesting the effect of staffing shortages on their patients as well as proposed cuts to health and retiree benefits. (more…)
Posted in Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nurse Marketing, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Technology
Although the number of medical errors probably aren’t actually increasing, the number of reported errors has risen. In the past, clinicians, including nurses, could face an immediate suspension or firing for a medical error. After a 1999 study in which the Institute of Medicine reported that approximately 100,000 people per year died due to complications from medical errors, hospitals and healthcare systems instituted changes to the medical error reporting systems in order to identify areas for improvement in patient safety standards. (more…)
Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Shortage, Travel Nursing
An organization is helping foreign nurses get certification quickly so they can begin to practice in Canada.
The organization, called the CARE Centre for Internationally Educated Nurses, has been around for about a decade.
Even nurses who have had a complete education and plenty of experience have had to start four-year training programs all over again once they relocate to Canada. CARE is doing something about that. (more…)
Posted in Affordable Care Act, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties
When asked what an ambulatory care nurse does, many nurses aren’t aware that such a specialty exists. What may be labeled as simply a nurse that used to work in a hospital, but who left to work in a doctor’s office, is an actual specialty in nursing practice. Ambulatory nursing has a professional society (the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nurses), practice stands, certification and evidence-based practice standards.
Ambulatory care nurses work in a variety of settings, including primary care clinics, outpatient surgery centers, federal and state correctional facilities, home health settings, schools, dialysis centers, hospice facilities and community health centers. Any non-hospital setting where a patient walks in and walks out may be defined as an ambulatory care center. (more…)
Posted in Hiring Nurses, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing Shortage, Per Diem Nursing, Travel Nursing
This article in Health Leaders Media has an interesting perspective from hospitals regarding controlling nurse labor costs.
It lays out a three-pronged approach to reduce personnel costs for nurses; a new approach to nurse overtime, use of supplemental labor such as from nursing agencies or from an in-house nursing pool, and focusing on retention efforts rather than going through the time and expense of finding and hiring a replacement.
The “Effective use of Supplemental Labor” section discusses the need for nursing agencies, as well as how alternative supplemental labor sources can help with costs:
Many healthcare leaders routinely budget for traveling or per diem nurses, but much of that may be unnecessary, says Hunt. Although there are reasons to use supplemental nurse labor, daily census demands shouldn’t be one of them, she says. Supplemental labor is expensive, she adds, so these nurses should be used to address seasonal volume increases, medical leaves, or to fill in during large training initiatives such as ICD-10.
“I do believe there is a place for supplemental nurses; it’s how you use them. (more…)
Posted in Affordable Care Act, Hospitals, Nurse Databases, Nursing, Nursing News, Technology
Electronic Health Records are somewhat controversial — some people think they’re a great idea, some people really don’t.
Evidence is starting to come in regarding whether they make a difference, and the news seems to be pretty good.
Nurse.com has an article explaining a new study out of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, the first of its kind:
They studied more than 16,000 nurses working at 316 hospitals in four states and found that “implementation of an EHR may result in improved and more efficient nursing care, better care coordination and patient safety,” (more…)
Posted in Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Shortage
When researchers took a look at the number of new students entering nursing school, they were pleasantly surprised to learn that the nursing shortage may not be as bad as they once predicted it would be when the baby boomer nurses begin to retire or leave the profession.
Dr. David I. Auerbach conducted the study published in the December 2011 issue of Health Affairs and found that each new data set from year-to-year showed increasing numbers of new young nursing students. Analysis of more than 35 years of Census data showed that in the 80′s and 90′s the number of registered nurses younger than 30 years of age was down from 30 percent to 12 percent, and that the average age of the nurses rose from 37 to 41. The profession was on track for a severe shortage of more than 250,000 nurses by the time the last of the baby boomers retired.
From 2002 to 2009, however, that trend reversed and there was a 62 percent rise in new nurses age 23 to 26. (more…)
Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing School, Nursing Shortage, Travel Nursing
A study has found that nurses tend to find work that is close to the nursing school that they graduated from. This means that areas without nursing schools — such as rural areas — tend to have a harder time finding nurses.
And if there aren’t enough nurses to go around, that has serious implications for the health of the people who live in those areas.
The study found that more than half of all nurses work within 40 miles of the nursing school they graduated from. Additionally, almost 80% of the nurses surveyed stay within the state in which they graduated from high school.
“Given the strong tendency for nurses to practice close to where they attended nursing school and to attend nursing school near where they graduated high school, it’s not surprising that parts of the country with few or no schools of nursing are struggling to find nurses,” (more…)
Posted in Hiring Nurses, Hospitals, Nurse Employers, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Shortage
A study published in June of 2000 in the Journal of the American Medical Association painted a pretty bleak picture of the future of nursing. Of particular concern was whether there would be enough nurses to go around by the year 2020. They projected that there would be 20% fewer nurses than would actually be required.
A number of news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, are noting a new study by the same authors that shows that now, things are looking much better since then:
There has been a resurgence of interest in nursing by both younger folks and those entering the field later in life, according to a new study (by the same authors) published in Health Affairs. And if growth continues at its current rate — admittedly, a big “if” — the shortage posed by retiring baby boomers might be alleviated, the researchers write.
(more…)
