National Time Out Day - Next Wednesday

With the support of the World Health Organization and the Joint Commission, the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) has organized the Time Out Commitment Campaign, creating several tools in support of National Time Out Day.  This year, the event will be held on June 16 and reminds the entire surgical team how much Time Out matters to them and their patients. Each year, the AORN promotes National Time Out Day to emphasize the importance of surgical teams taking a time out before every operation to confirm correct patient, correct procedure, correct surgical site, and other important information to ensure patient safety.

Please comment below to share your experiences with National Time Out Day.

The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) is the national association committed to improving patient safety in the surgical setting. AORN is the premier resource for perioperative nurses, advancing the profession and the professional with valuable guidance as well as networking and resource-sharing opportunities. AORN promotes safe patient care and is recognized as an authority for safe operating room practices and a definitive source for information and guiding principles that support day-to-day perioperative nursing practice.

INQRI Projects Featured in Geriatric Nursing

The INQRI program is pleased to report that the latest edition of Geriatric Nursing features all INQRI projects in their selection of featured articles.

Please click here to read the letter from editor Barbara Resnick (also an INQRI grantee), "The Difference Nurses Are Making to Improve Quality of Care to Older Adults through the Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative."

Featured Articles:

The Impact of Worker Health on Long Term Care: Implications for Nursing Managers
Susan Letvak, Christopher J. Ruhm

SPEACS-2: Intensive Care Unit “Communication Rounds” with Speech Language Pathology Mary Beth Happ, Brooke M. Baumann, Jennifer Sawicki, Judith A. Tate, Elisabeth L. George, Amber E. Barnato

Age-Related Differences in Perception of Quality of Discharge Teaching and Readiness for Hospital Discharge
Kathleen L. Bobay, Teresa A. Jerofke, Marianne E. Weiss, Olga Yakusheva

Nurse Identified Hospital to Home Medication Discrepancies: Implications for Improving Transitional Care
Cynthia F. Corbett, Stephen M. Setter, Kenn B. Daratha, Joshua J. Neumiller, Lindy D. Wood

Satisfaction with Assisted Living: The Unexplored Role of Physical Activity
Barbara Resnick, Elizabeth Galik, Ann L. Gruber-Baldini, Sheryl Zimmerman

Geriatric Nursing

Volume 31, Issue 3, Pages 153-238, e1-e2 (May-June 2010)

RWJF's Quality Stories

Each month, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation releases "The Quality Report," an e-newsletter which provides a monthly report from their Quality/Equality program area. One of the highlights each month is the "Voices of Quality" segment - an opportunity to hear from a health care provider about what works.

This month's segment actually featured a video: Learn how the team at Memorial Hospital in Broward County, Florida, reduced emergency department door-to-balloon time for heart attack patients and saved lives while participating in an RWJF-sponsored quality improvement initiative. In the first year of the program, door-to-balloon time improved by 60 percent. Now the hospital routinely hits the 90-minute target for 100 percent of heart attack patients.

Click here.

Initiative on the Future of Nursing Releases Workshop Summary

Yesterday, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine released a summary document encapsulating the presentations and discussions from the Forum on the Future of Nursing: Community Health, Public Health, Long-term Care and Primary Care held in December 2009.

The Initiative on the Future of Nursing seeks to transform nursing as part of larger efforts to reform the health care system. As part of this Initiative, three forums were held to explore challenges and opportunities in nursing. The second forum, on December 3, 2009, was held in Philadelphia, Pa. More than 600 health care leaders attended this forum in person and via webcast. Speakers, including Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, discussed opportunities in which nurses—who are key front-line providers of care—can play a role in ensuring patients in all settings receive the best possible care.

The IOM will use the perspectives and ideas summarized in this document to inform a final report on the future of nursing, expected to be released in October 2010.

To download a copy of the summary, please visit www.iom.edu/nursing.

A Vision for Transformative Change

Please join us...

"A Vision for Transformative Change"

June 16, 2010 - 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. ET

Three year old Sebastian Ferrero died in October, 2007 due to a series of preventable medical errors including a medication overdose. Please join us as we welcome his parents, Horst and Luisa Ferrero, who will share their son's story and the efforts they have taken in his memory.

This webinar will serve as a poignant conclusion to our medication management series, co-sponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Click here to register.

Click here to learn more about the Sebastian Ferrero Foundation.

Please contact Heather Kelley with any questions.
Please visit the INQRI website to view previous presentations.

The Medication Management Webinar Series is a year-long initiative, co-sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) program and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

A Web Event Series on Improvement Science

Please join INQRI grantees Kathleen Stevens and Jack Needleman for the first web event presented by the Improvement Science Research Network (ISRN).  This session will introduce improvement science and showcase the activities of the ISRN as a catalyst for change:

The Way Forward: An Introduction to Improvement Science
Monday, June 14, 2010, 2:00 pm EDT

Click here to register.

Co-Presenters:

Jack Needleman, PhD, FAAN
Professor and Director,
Health Services PhD and MSHS Programs
Department of Health Services
UCLA School of Public Health

Kathleen R. Stevens, EdD, RN, ANEF, FAAN
Professor and Director
Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

For more information, contact: ImprovementScienceResearch@isrn.net.

The Nurse in Your Health Care Future

Check out this commentary in last week's Oregonian: "The Nurse in Your Health Care Future." Guest columnist Thomas Aschenbrener discusses the impact that the new health care bill will have on the delivery of care considering the new demand for services and the fact that some 300,000 doctors will be retiring in the next ten years. Aschenbrener challenges us to consider expanding what is already successful:

"We need to ask what's required to meet the future needs of our population and look at what's already working. One area of great success: nurse-run clinics. Why can't this model become widespread?"

We couldn't agree more.
Comment below and tell us what you think.