nursing | Distance Learning Systems (DLSI)

Care Lapses in Nursing Homes

Eight Connecticut nursing homes have been penalized by the state Department of Public Health for lapses in proper care. On Nov. 7, Beacon Brook Health Center in Naugatuck was penalized $2,180 in relation to a citizen who passed away May 23 of cardiopulmonary arrest and a bowel impediment, DPH records show. DPH discovered that the house’s healthcare record did not indicate that an abdominal evaluation was done on May 23 after the citizen reported of feeling sick and a stomachache on May 22. Also, healthcare records did not indicate that a doctor had seen the citizen after May 21 and the home did not have a policy about stomach tests. On May 23, the citizen was discovered without a pulse and CPR was started. The citizen passed away after paramedics came and took over the CPR.

In a similar case, a Beacon Brook citizen with congestive heart failure incorrectly was not given drugs for fluid retention and no excess weight factors were mentioned in the resident’s history that would have activated a doctor’s notice. The citizen gained nine pounds between July 10 and July 21 and was put in the medical center for difficulty breathing and liquid excess. DPH discovered that the drug was mentioned in a doctor’s purchase but not in the drugs history, so the elderly care facility ceased providing it to the citizen on July 9. The citizen spent five days in the medical center.

Beacon Brook’s manager, Betty Garcia, said that the occurrences happened before she took over, so she could not comment. On Nov. 6, Manchester Manor Health Care Center was penalized $2,250 in connection with two occurrences, including one on May 29, when a nurse’s assistance had left a citizen in a bathroom, heard a thump and then discovered the citizen on his or her legs with a deep cut on the temple. The cut required five stitches to close and personnel discovered that the assistance had breached a safety rule at the nursing home by leaving the citizen alone.

A health professional was observed on Oct. 30 providing a citizen with Alzheimer’s disease coffee without a lid in breach of a doctor’s order that the citizen be given a lid on all hot drinks. State records show the citizen had been burnt off on the hip and legs Aug. 2 and on the stomach on Oct. 2, after dropping hot coffee that was provided without a lid. Administrator Jane Ellen Gaudette said the staff has been retrained since the occurrences and the property is in full conformity with state guidelines. These lapses in care, although minor can have very relevant effects in nursing homes.

Nursing Education Grants

In its pursuit to back up extensive, high-quality studies that promote the growth of the technology of nursing education and learning, the National League for Nursing has put out its yearly call for suggestions. The NLN’s Research in Nursing Education Grants Program, which started more than several years ago with $12,000 to spread among worthy health professional faculty-scholars, today awards more than $80,000 yearly, with financing from the NLN and the NLN Foundation for Nursing Education.

In addition to three named research grants, the Nancy Langston/Ruth Corcoran, Joyce Griffin-Sobel and Dorothy Otto Research Awards, two prizes are made specifically to doctoral/DNP candidates: the Jane Angel Rizzolo NLN Dissertation/DNP Project Award and the Midwest Nursing Research Society/NLN Dissertation/DNP Project Award. All grantees must be NLN members or a member of the school at an NLN-affiliated school or college.

To be qualified for assistance, grant suggestions must meet at least one of the NLN’s research priorities for 2012-15, defined in a document accepted by the NLN Board of Governors. With a particular focus on changing nursing education and learning for the modern nursing care environment, these main concerns fall within three wide categories: 1) Leading Change in Nursing Education; 2) Improving the Science of Nursing Education; and 3) Creating National and Worldwide Management in Nursing Education. Awards will benefit multi-site, multi-method tasks that include relationships between practice and educational learning surroundings. The due date to publish programs is Feb 20, 2014.

Dedicated to quality in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the top company for health professional staff and leaders in nursing education and learning. The NLN offers professional growth, social media opportunities, examining services, scientific research grants and public policy tasks to its 39,000 individuals and 1,200 institutional members. NLN associates represent nursing teaching programs across the number of college and nursing care companies and organizations.

NLN Creating Inclusive Environments

Health professional teachers must master novel techniques and strategies to make and maintain a racial, social, gender-diverse nursing labor force ready to provide excellent care to individual communities of varying backgrounds and sources across powerful, complicated wellness techniques.

As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes full effect with the start of the new year, nursing professionals must keep pace with the law’s inherent call for social understanding and inclusivity. For nurse teachers, that means mastering novel techniques and strategies to make and maintain a racial, social, gender-diverse nursing labor force ready to provide excellent care to individual communities of varying background scenes and sources across powerful, complicated wellness techniques. In keeping with this challenge, the National League for Nursing or NLN presents its 2014 Leadership Conference in Savannah, Georgia, Friday through Saturday, February 6-8: Academic Leadership Excellence: Developing Inclusive Environments.

NLN CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, will open the conference on Friday evening with her talk: “Now Is the Time: Developing Inclusive Environments to Advance the Nation’s Health.” The next morning, following welcoming comments from the NLN’s president, Marsha Adams, PhD, RN, CNE, ANEF, Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN, will provide the keynote address, “Integrating the Three Ds: Diversity, Differences, Social Determinants, Nursing’s Perspectives.” Dr. Villarruel is lecturer and Nola J. Pender Collegiate Chair at the University Of Michigan School Of Nursing. Throughout the three-day gathering, national experts will guide conference members in plenary sessions, panel conversations, and large classes to:

Explore inclusivity and its importance to nursing education and nursing care.

Understand the Affordable Care Act’s impact on nursing education’s role in preparing students to provide culturally competent care to different communities.
Take part in courageous dialogues about inclusivity.
Identify action techniques to develop a base for social due diligence and inclusivity in nursing teaching programs.

NLNAC Accreditation, A Sign of a Good Nursing School

There are so many nursing educational institutions, so many degrees and so many stages to train and learn. In addition to educational costs, how can you tell which ones are quality nursing schools? Here are tell-tale signs to look for. The best way to discover the following details is to first look at the college’s web page. Some can be hard to get around. Use an online search engine if you cannot find a particular product. If you still cannot find it, contact them and ask for the admissions person. Use this record to “interview” your university. They should be beneficial and offer the details easily. If they are unhelpful or reluctant, that can be an idea to the overall culture of the school.

1. NCLEX Passing Rate – Every student health professional has to take a national examination known as the NCLEX to lastly get certified as a health professional. Examine the college’s rate of learners who pass the NCLEX. Every school should have it either released or revealed easily if you contact them. If they are reluctant to tell you, that is a red flag.

2. Accreditation – Accreditation is a nationwide “stamp of approval” for a college. A graduate from an approved university is able to transfer or continue their education in other educational institutions. It can also be an indication of the great quality of training and learning you will get. The two programs that accredit educational institutions are the NLNAC (National League of Nursing Accrediting Commission) and the CCNE (Commission on College Nursing Education). The CCNE is only for bachelor’s and master’s degree levels, while the NLNAC may accredit at any stage. Look at the college’s web page or ask them straight to make sure they are accredited by one of these companies.

3. Class Size and Retention Rate – Is it a big university or a small school? What is the common class size? And most of all, how many learners make it all the way through in one try? This is probably one of those things you will have to call and ask about. A higher failing rate can mean a few things. Nursing programs are usually challenging. That isn’t a bad thing, since you will be better ready for the NCLEX. However, be careful if they have too great of a failing rate. They might not be beneficial enough to their learners.

Anatomy & Physiology Course Relevance

The Anatomy & Physiology course presents the structure and function of the whole human body. You will read about the cells, tissues and walls that make up our bodies and how our vital systems function to help us develop and stay in good health. In this course you will learn to:

Describe basic human body features and life process.
Name the significant human body systems and associate their functions.
Describe the physical locations, components and physical features of the primary elements of each significant system of the human body.

Human anatomy & physiology (A & P) courses are important to a scholar’s success in a nursing program; unfortunately, many beginner learners don’t realize the significance. Some learners who had an A & P class in high school most often learned to remember content; they did not apply what they learned to a practical situation. Other learners were never introduced to the topic in high school. Therefore, beginner nurses registered in individual anatomy & physiology often lack the critical thinking abilities necessary to implement theory to practice. Often they state being unable to comprehend how the topic will serve them in nursing and are more focused on the technical abilities, or ‘real nursing’ material. Seniors, on the other hand, often say they wish they had paid more attention in beginner A & P. With nursing practice, they quickly understand the significance of A & P.

To help beginner nurses comprehend the nursing importance of anatomy & physiology, the writers designed a project giving senior student nurse guides to freshmen. Initially, the A & P trainer, who was missing nursing experience, was concerned with educating A & P material to nurses without providing relevant nursing illustrations. This concern led to the A & P trainer shadowing the critical care nursing trainer and senior nurses during nursing time in the intensive care unit (ICU) to see nursing application of A & P material to practice.

Clinical illustrations are abundant. For example, the A & P trainer saw a patient with serious Laennec’s cirrhosis suffering from severe ascites that was disrupting his respiratory status. Under the nursing teacher’s guidance, she examined, auscultated, and palpated the individual’s fluid-filled stomach and then observed as nine liters of liquid were removed through paracentesis with ultrasound examination. She still uses this research study when educating liquid balance and liver function. This is a great example of how an anatomy & physiology course can become relevant to a student in a nursing program.

Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Dilemma

For family members across Kansas and Missouri, struggling to choose the right service to take care of an aging beloved with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, an important aspect of the decision is understanding the differences between nursing homes and assisted living. It is a dilemma Mitzi McFatrich deals with every day as the executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care, a non-profit advocacy organization assisting elderly care service residents and or their family members. “There are so many of us that are aging and a large number of those individuals are going to have Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” she said. “How are we going to fulfill their care needs?”

People often mix up nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but the two are not exactly the same. A nursing home provides health care to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia patients, with RNs on-site eight hours a day. In Missouri and Kansas, assisted living facilities employ RNs on a limited basis. Because assisted living facilities receive health insurance funding, there are strict state and government regulations on staff training, the number of employees required per shift and the level of cleanliness. There is zero government oversight for assisted living centers; very few state rules. Medicare often pays most of a patient’s elderly care service bill. In assisted living facilities, a resident’s family must shoulder the whole cost.

While a nursing home service agrees to become a permanent residence for individuals no matter their disease, a person who’s Alzheimer’s disease or dementia worsens can be discharged from an assisted living service. The director of education, programs and public policy for the Alzheimer’s Association, Heart of America chapter, Michelle Niedens says these care facilities can evict a resident in as little as 30 days. “There’s often an over promising; ‘We can handle your mom and dad, through the whole disease course,’ that is, until some major bump occurs and then the game gets changed,” Niedens said. According to McFatrich, facilities will say, “We can no longer fulfill this person’s needs. And that’s what they use in order to release someone.” That release or eviction can affect a family’s ability to find their loved one a new house.

A Collaborative Model of Nursing Education

A new effort designed to ease the conversion between associate and baccalaureate degree nursing programs started out to its first class of learners this summer. Based at the School of Nursing at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), the program enables learners with associate degrees in nursing (ADN) to earn baccalaureate degrees in nursing (BSN) in 12 months. Supporters of the program see this as a big improvement over the typical ADN-to-BSN conversion, which can take learners two years to complete and often includes repetitive training because of unreliable curricula across nursing educational institutions. It will also enhance diversity in the nursing employees and help develop more wellness professional management, followers said.

“The idea is that learners will get their BSN in a year with no repeating of courses,” said Mary Dickow, MPA, state-wide director of the California Action Coalition, a group of wellness professional management and nurse champions who will work to enhance nursing and nursing care in situations by changing the nursing career. The California Action Coalition is a part of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, a national campaign supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and AARP that is attempting to convert health care through nursing.

The CSULA programs draws from a white paper on nursing education upgrade, called the California Collaborative Model for Nursing Education (CCMNE), which was released in 2008 by the California Institute for Nursing & Health Care. The model set out in the white paper and now implemented at CSULA, has been duplicated in other configurations around the state.

The program’s overall goal is to create a more highly knowledgeable nursing workforce, which is needed to ensure there is an adequate supply of nursing staff and to enhance the quality of care. Research has shown that BSN-prepared nursing staff provides more secure care, in part because of their background in pathophysiology and because of their understanding of disease procedures, Judson said. Equipped with this type of nursing education, many companies in the region are now demanding that new nursing staff hold bachelor’s degree or higher, leaving ADN-prepared nursing staff with less job opportunities. This program is a life line that allows many to continue their nursing careers.

Humanities and Medical Professionals

The actual dogma is that learning the humanities makes physicians human. It appears to be good. It might even sound naturally right. But the “common” in common sense is often the unprocessed variety. Hiding within the medical humanities’ manifesto is a way of associative thinking, a kind of causal fallacy: it is the idea that fictional or philosophical consumption and sympathy for a one’s fellow beings, adhere to a simple straight line direction.

And herein can be found the problem. There is no efficient proof that learning literary works enhances stages of sympathy among doctors. This is not to say the dogma won’t yet be vindicated. And it is not to say educating or enhancing stages of concern among medical care learners and physicians is an insignificant process. In fact, the very opposite is the case: sympathy and concern form an important part of the doctor-patient connection. Doctors need to be aware of the variety of experiences that diseases and personal conditions can bring. Empathy is also essential in developing the kind of environment where sufferers can connect successfully and when sufferers aren’t forth-coming about signs, physicians skip a significant item of the challenge.

The point is that nobody, least of all medical care educationalists, can manage to be glib about how this aspect of medical care professionalism and reliability can best be found or obtained. And what about other medical care professionals? Exponents of the fictional medical care humanities appear less desperate to ingratiate themselves among nurses, for example. Couldn’t our nurses, home health aides and other medical care employees use some of this (purported) fictional elixir? An educational Google search located one book suggesting the use of (specifically) “popular literature” among nurses. According to this thinking, we should recommend Danielle Steele to our medical staff, while providing Dostoyevsky to the medics.

NLNAC Accreditation Levels of Demand

NLN Approved Nursing Schools are those schools with nursing programs that has been thoroughly evaluated by and reach the standards of the National League for Nursing Accreditation Commission or NLNAC. For over 100 years, ever since 1893, the NLN has been dedicated to quality and nursing staff in universities and others who provide nursing education, Nursing care organizations and even members of the public, continue to trust and prefer the NLNAC completely because of the high requirements it constantly maintains. The National League for Nursing or NLN is the first nursing company in the United States. Apart from offering accreditation for programs through the NLNAC, such as degrees, and associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree, the NLN also offer networking opportunities, research grants and community policy projects. Located in New York, the NLN keeps providing enhanced, improved and extended services to its members.

With such great requirements and over a millennium of genuine quality, an NLNAC accredited nursing school will certainly be an excellent company. The assurance is given that the universities and also the programs meet and/or exceed requirements that are regarded the standard for the supply of nursing education. Educational institutions that are just being regarded for accreditation are regarded to be applicants, however, the fact that they receive candidacy from the NLN, is not an assurance that they will be accredited; this is the first step, and they might come up short of satisfying the requirements.

Furthermore, NLN Approved Nursing Educational institutions would have faculty with appropriate credentials, program that is maximum for the planning of a well-rounded, fully-educated health professional specialist, and a huge cohort of graduates that are effective in the licensure examinations. The aim of these accredited schools is to supply the medical care system with medical professionals that are knowledgeable and ready to provide quality care to the ill, injured and disabled; and health professional teachers who are highly capable of passing on the wealth of experience and knowledge they possess to the next generation of nurses.

Barriers of Nursing Education

The demand for nursing staff across North Carolina is growing considerably. But so are the limitations preventing access to the right nursing education. More nursing centers require four-year degrees for RNs beyond the minimum associate’s degree. But higher education programs are turning away qualified candidates for lack of space. It’s a nursing shortage with no simple solutions. And just over the skyline, the healthcare industry can see a trend of as many as 32 million recently insured Americans who will get into the system on Jan. 1, 2014, as part of the national Affordable Care Act.

Now, universities and nursing centers are working together to fix the problem for themselves. Health care is changing in many ways. In the future, nursing centers will be the last resort for the most seriously ill people. Nurses will cure a variety of diseases, help manage such serious problems as diabetes and even recommend medicines for many conditions. Greensboro’s Cone Health utilizes about 3,000 nursing staff across five nursing centers. And based on revenues or new jobs, it can hire hundreds of nursing staff every year. Some 65% of the nursing staff now at Cone has four-year higher education degrees, bachelors of science in nursing. Cone wishes to boost that to at least 80% by 2020, under suggestions from the national Institute of Medicine.

Cone has mentioned a decrease of death rates after surgery for sufferers handled by nursing staff with bachelor’s degrees and even individual fulfillment ratings are higher, said the center’s top health professional, Theresa Brodrick, RN, Ph.D., executive vice president and primary nursing official for Cone Health. But getting that nursing education is not simple. Students have two routes to become certified nurses: They can start out in a four-year program without a nursing certificate or they can get into an associate’s level system at a community college. Both are extremely competitive. In some cases only 50% of candidates are accepted. Another program that allows a nurse to earn a bachelor’s degree may provide more nursing staff with bachelor’s degrees.