Nurse Mentor

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...

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 nu...

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...

I've succumbed to Twitter.  You can follow my tweets @nursementornyc.   The blog will continue for more in-depth critiques, stories from the field, and other resources to help keep you moving forward in your career.

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.

With more absurd stories of bad management coming in from the field, it seems only appropriate to talk about the great need for good nurse managers. According to the 2008 US national sample survey of nurses, less than 25% of nurses in management roles have a masters degree in general, nevermind a specialized one with the necessary leadership, finance, and operations management skills and knowledge required for the role. In fact, 40% of nurse managers only have an associate's degree. Managers continue to impact patient outcomes with how they choose to staff their units, handle patient complaints, and navigate workplace relationships. The quality of their management is reflected in unit turnover rates of staff. Unit level turnover is very costly to the healthcare system. If you interview for a job and you find out there has been a lot of turnover, be wary of bad management practices. As your career evolves, test out your leadership skills as a charge nurse. Get involved with projec...

I wish I didn't have to keep highlighting nurses who are the embodiment of what our profession should be at all times, never mind during disasters, but that seems to be the way the media highlights nurses these days. CNN highlighted a story about the nurse who was with a Boston Marathon bombing victim during her last minutes of life.  Read the story here and remember these are moments that remind us why we do what we do.