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Showing posts from May, 2013

The Power of Contraceptives

USAID recently published this infographic from their work through the " Deliver Project ".  Their research and program development work adopts a variety of approaches to help people in low and middle-income countries have planned pregnancies. What happens when mothers survive childbirth and can space their pregnancies appropriately? * Children are more likely to live to adulthood and create a sustainable workforce. * Children are more likely to go to school, develop literacy and numeracy skills, and become contributing members to society and economic development. * Children are less likely to grow up with one parent or become orphans because their mothers survive child birth. What's more amazing is we know how to solve these problems.  We have the science and the technology available.  The research-based has captured what we need to do to create behavior change that promotes mother and child survival. Yes, it is complicated and each effort needs to be count

Change a Licensure Exam, Watch the Impact

From the latest  US nursing workforce report from the Health Research Services Administration in the US, this striking graph should get more attention.  The plunging pass rates of internationally educated nurses (IEN) on the NCLEX-RN exam have big implications for global health workforce policy. The first thing you need to know is that the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) changed the format and content of the NCLEX-RN exam in 2008.  The test designers added new testing methods that better validate the actual knowledge, skills, and abilities of internationally educated candidates.  This also occurred during growing global outcry of high income countries contributing to "brain drain" in low and middle-income countries.  The impact of the change on internationally educated nurses is clear and has reduced the number of viable candidates who would be eligible for practice in the US. At the same time, NCSBN data also show that the overall numbers of IENs

Good News for Pediatric Nurses - Better Staffing Reduces Hospital Readmission Rates

A new study by my colleague Heather Tubbs-Cooley, PhD, RN out of Cincinnati Children's Hospital demonstrated that better RN to patient ratios mean reduced readmission rates between 15 and 30 days after hospital discharge.   From the study published in the British Medical Journal of Quality & Safety : " Each one patient increase in a hospital's average paediatric staffing ratio increased a medical child's odds of readmission within 15–30 days by a factor of 1.11, or by 11% (95% CI 1.02 to 1.20) and a surgical child's likelihood of readmission within 15–30 days by a factor of 1.48, or by 48% (95% CI 1.27 to 1.73). Children treated in hospitals with paediatric staffing ratios of 1 : 4 or less were significantly less likely to be readmitted within 15–30 days. There were no significant effects of nurse staffing ratios on readmissions within 14 days."   Weaknesses of the study include that it does draw from a dataset of nurse survey responses from four US s

Happy Nurses Week!

It's our week to be recognized, so enjoy it. Take some time to remember your best patient care moments of the past year. Hold on to those and remember them when you're having not so good moments. The good moments will keep you going, always.

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