DiversityNursing Blog

By Bobby Shuttleworth

At Calhoun Community College, nursing students are looking forward to the day they get their certification, degree and begin in the work force. While some will end up in a traditional role, others may look forward to adventure.

Brian Soloman is ready to get into a career and be with his children. 

"I would like to go on to possibly UAH and consider even pursuing a nurse practitioner," said Soloman.

Takicha Barrett said her goals revolve around the very young. 

"My plan is to successfully obtain a job, hopefully in the pediatrics department. I love kids," she said.

Soloman said he's heard of exotic locations, but he wants to stay home with his children.   He said those locations are everywhere. 

"...On oil rigs, people that are offshore. And there's even contractors that are in the Middle East or in the theatre in Afghanistan and that were in Iraq; some of the companies have also hired out nurses," he said.

Bret McGill is the Dean of the Health Sciences Division at Calhoun Community College. He said the options are almost limitless.   

"A couple of jobs that come to mind, one is a school nurse and just about every school has an LPN or an RN that works to take care of children and administer medications," said McGill.

One of the areas people may not be familiar with is in the industrial setting.

Candy Fall is an occupational nurse at BP. She's worked at several industries before honing her skills here with a focus on wellness. She writes articles for the corporate newsletter, an internal TV station, and much more.  

"This particular plant, I'm responsible for medical surveillance for each employee that's here," Fall said.

She said BP is big into wellness programs to keep their employees healthy, like flu shots and more.  

"We have a fitness center reimbursement program. We have fruit of the day, where we have fruit delivered to the plant three times a week and our employees and our contract employees can have a piece of fruit to keep them from going to the vending machines," she added.

The program at Calhoun is giving nurses an opportunity to pursue a rewarding job, while helping to keep employees healthy.

Copyright 2013 WAFF. All rights reserved.

by Stephanie Baum

Nurses have been taking on more responsibility in recent years — and a good thing too. If the shortage of primary care physicians continues coupled with millions of new patients expected to be added to healthcare systems when provisions of the Affordable Care Act are enacted, they will have to take on even more. At the same time, some nursing schools are struggling to employ enough professors. A health IT startup has developed a cloud-based patient simulator that is being designed to be progressively more challenging as nursing school students’ skills develop.

Gainesville, Florida-based Shadow Health’s education tool seeks to put nursing and medical school students at ease with the routine of seeing patients and boost their comfort levels so they know what to expect. It also is aimed at making future nurses and physicians become more self-aware and better communicators so they develop a stronger rapport with their patients.

Tina Jones, an animated and interactive patient, comes into an exam room after a fall. Users type questions to better assess her health and get a medical history to learn of any underlying conditions they need to be aware of to more effectively treat the patient. She gives oral and written responses. There are 1,500 possible responses to student questions that are matched up with a database of 20,000 questions. Users can view lab results, physical findings and the patient history. They can also submit findings for an instant evaluation and compare them with an expert.

David Massias, the CEO and co-founder of the company, told MedCity News in a phone interview that the virtual patient does not recognize medical jargon, although the software program does. Instead of tachycardia, for example, the user has to say rapid heartbeat or use words a non-healthcare professional would understand.

The company raised $1.2 million in its latest financing round partly to help develop its market penetration — it has a target of 20,000 to 30,000 users. “For the past 12 to 15 months, we have been in sprint mode,” Massias said. “We have expanded from half a dozen to two dozen nursing schools.”

Massias said the company wants to create much more intimacy between students and their digital patients so they are not just memorizing text books. “We want to entrench the [patient interaction] experience so much that it becomes second nature.”

There are an increasing number of patient simulators coming to the market both for healthcare professionals as well as nursing and medical school students in response to a shift in teaching approaches that has accompanied the growth in integrating digital tools. Massias distinguishes the company by taking a longitudinal approach. Shadow Health sees the future of healthcare education as a coaching and tutor model where students use simulators to improve their critical thinking and address areas where they have the greatest need for remediation. Although it currently follows students through a semester of school, the company is expanding the software to accommodate a two-year nursing school or four-year medical school program by getting input from educators.

In addition to medical school and nursing school students, Massias said the company has mapped a course that will include training for physical therapists and pharmacists.

“The market today goes 10-miles wide and 1-inch deep. We want to go 10-miles deep and 1-mile wide.”

See the video here.

by Veronica Combs

There are about eight halls of exhibitors at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show and I swear at least one of them was full of iPhone cases and nothing else. I just bought a Droid Razr and I hate the Otter Box that I bought with it, so I was quite disgusted that I couldn’t find an alternative in this sea of cases.

Anyway, there were several practical iPhone and iPad accessories at the show, mixed in with the Spider-Man and jeweled options. Here are three that would keep your Apple device safe no matter what job you have in healthcare:

LifeProof

This booth had several small stages with a chef, a firefighter, and a doctor — each one explaining the merits of this protector. It is a thin, polycarbonate frame that goes around the device.

It’s waterproof up to 6.6-feet deep for 30 minutes and keeps out dust. The nice part about the waterproof seal is that it goes around the edge of the screen, so you can still touch it directly. Water can touch the screen but not get inside the device or touch any of the plugs.

LifeProof also has two straps that seem perfect for a nurse or doctor. One fits diagonally across the back of the iPad and the other is a shoulder strap.

The Joy Factory

C-clamp Mount from The Joy Factory

This company also had a great case and an awesome accessory. To illustrate how strong the case is, people were shooting bean bags at it. If a dangling device suffered a direct hit, it splashed down into the tank beneath. Cool factor? The aXtion pro case floats. The case goes on sale in April.

The company also makes BubbleShield bags with a big ring at the top. They’re like stylish Ziploc bags for your iPhone — perfect for those days when you are canoeing down the river.

The accessory is a wheelchair mount for iPads and other tablets. The arm attaches with a C-clamp designed to fit around a tube or other curved surface. The tablet snaps into the protective hard-shell tray, which in turn screws to the mounting brackets. A magnet connects the tablet to the arm of the mount.

Barry Lieberman of Joy Factory said the company donated some of the mounts to soldiers at a VA hospital in Texas and that scientists in the spinal research lab at the University of California Irvine were using the mounts as well.

Joy Factory was recognized at the show as a 2013 Design and Engineering Awards honoree.

Nanotech protection

If you want an invisible cloak of protection, I found two options: one is available now, the other is still coming to America. For readers everywhere else in the world, you’re in luck.

Liquipel is the one you can get now. You can buy a device treated with this self-sealing
nanocoating that protects your phone if it falls into water. The entire phone — guts and all — is coated, so no more rice treatments if your phone falls into the toilet. Currently, you can buy Asus, Samsung, Motorola and HTC products as well as Apples.

DryWired is also a nanocoating, but it protects against bacteria and corrosion as well as water. The treatment has been applied to printed circuit boards, cellphones, tablets, medical electronics, aircraft foam, plastics and cloth without changing the look or feel of the product. That was the “oooo” demonstration at the booth: “Here, touch this tissue, feels normal, right? But look, it doesn’t disintegrate in water.”

DryWired licenses the technology from EuroPlamsa, a Belgian company. The Los Angeles company is working with manufacturers to get electronics and other components treated with the coating right in the factory.

by Stephanie Baum

As people in towns and cities across the U.S. feel the clammy grip of the flu epidemic, several biotechnology startups and Big Pharma companies are using innovative technology to develop different approaches to combating influenza and developing vaccines to combat multiple flu strains. Here are five of them:

Nasal spray: NanoBio Corp‘s flu vaccine is a nasal spray designed to offer short-term infection prevention and reduce transmission of the virus between humans. It uses nanoemulsion technology to develop a seasonal flu vaccine nasal spray. Currently in phase 2 development, the technology uses an oil-in-water emulsion to rapidly penetrate through pores and hair shafts to the site of an infection, and physically disrupt the outer membrane of pathogenic organisms by fusing with the invading flu virus and killing it before infection occurs. It would be used at times when there is a high risk of exposure such as air travel, a pediatrician’s office visit, hospital or any situation where groups of people congregate, according to the company’s website.

Combating more strains: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved GlaxoSmithKline’s quadrivalent vaccines last month. The vaccines contain two influenza A strains and two influenza B strains to potentially help broaden protection against seasonal influenza. It is approved for use in children 3 years of age and older. Current flu vaccines generally protect against three strains of influenza: two A strains and one B strain.

Universal vaccines: Biotechnology startup Visterra is developing a monoclonal antibody for universal flu vaccine VIS410 that could not only cover the three most common seasonal strains the widely available flu vaccines protect against, but also more deadly strains like the H1N1 variation.

Cross-strain protection: Inovio is developing a universal flu vaccine that would induce both preventive antibody and T-cell immune responses for cross-strain protection against known and new, unmatched viruses. It could be especially helpful for the elderly who are among those most vulnerable to contracting the flu. It is developing a seasonal flu vaccine as well as one that could combat a pandemic.

Egg alternative: One problem with flu vaccines on the market is that they are developed from fertilized chicken eggs, which makes them off limits to those with egg allergies. A new seasonal flu vaccine from Novartis using cultured animal cells won FDA approval in November. It will be marketed under brand name Flucelvax.

BY LINDSEY TANNER

Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who won't get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal.

"Where does it say that I am no longer a patient if I'm a nurse," wondered Carrie Calhoun, a longtime critical care nurse in suburban Chicago who was fired last month after she refused a flu shot.

Hospitals' get-tougher measures coincide with an earlier-than-usual flu season hitting harder than in recent mild seasons. Flu is widespread in most states, and at least 20 children have died.

Most doctors and nurses do get flu shots. But in the past two months, at least 15 nurses and other hospital staffers in four states have been fired for refusing, and several others have resigned, according to affected workers, hospital authorities and published reports.

In Rhode Island, one of three states with tough penalties behind a mandatory vaccine policy for health care workers, more than 1,000 workers recently signed a petition opposing the policy, according to a labor union that has filed suit to end the regulation.

Why would people whose job is to protect sick patients refuse a flu shot? The reasons vary: allergies to flu vaccine, which are rare; religious objections; and skepticism about whether vaccinating health workers will prevent flu in patients.

Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director for adult immunization at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the strongest evidence is from studies in nursing homes, linking flu vaccination among health care workers with fewer patient deaths from all causes.

"We would all like to see stronger data," she said. But other evidence shows flu vaccination "significantly decreases" flu cases, she said. "It should work the same in a health care worker versus somebody out in the community."

Cancer nurse Joyce Gingerich is among the skeptics and says her decision to avoid the shot is mostly "a personal thing." She's among seven employees at IU Health Goshen Hospital in northern Indiana who were recently fired for refusing flu shots. Gingerich said she gets other vaccinations but thinks it should be a choice. She opposes "the injustice of being forced to put something in my body."

Medical ethicist Art Caplan says health care workers' ethical obligation to protect patients trumps their individual rights.

"If you don't want to do it, you shouldn't work in that environment," said Caplan, medical ethics chief at New York University's Langone Medical Center. "Patients should demand that their health care provider gets flu shots - and they should ask them."

For some people, flu causes only mild symptoms. But it can also lead to pneumonia, and there are thousands of hospitalizations and deaths each year. The number of deaths has varied in recent decades from about 3,000 to 49,000.

A survey by CDC researchers found that in 2011, more than 400 U.S. hospitals required flu vaccinations for their employees and 29 hospitals fired unvaccinated employees.

At Calhoun's hospital, Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, Ill., unvaccinated workers granted exemptions must wear masks and tell patients, "I'm wearing the mask for your safety," Calhoun says. She says that's discriminatory and may make patients want to avoid "the dirty nurse" with the mask.

by Victoria Lushbaugh

Video

The flu season is the meanest it has been in a decade. 

In fact, an updated map from the CDC shows the Commonwealth presently in the red zone, which is the highest category for flu cases reported in states.

Nurses at the CVS Minute Clinic said there are some myths about the flu and its vaccine.

• #1: It is too late to get the seasonal flu shot.
• #2: The flu shot can give you the flu.
• #3: If you got the flu vaccine last year, you don’t have to get it again this year.
• #4: There are serious side effects caused by the flu vaccine.
• #5: Natural immunity or living a healthy lifestyle is better than getting immunity from the flu shot.

Watch the video above to hear why Nurse Practitioner Anne Pohnert said these are false. 

By LIANNA SERKO

School of Nursing graduates of the class of 2012 saw a significant increase in employment over the class of 2011.

The Career Plans Survey, released by Career Services, revealed that 75 percent of Nursing School graduates obtained full-time employment, a major increase from 59 percent full-time employment for graduates of the class of 2011.

This placed Nursing School graduates second behind Wharton graduates in full-time employment among the four undergraduate schools in 2012. Graduates of the Wharton School reported 84.6 percent full-time employment, while Engineering and College graduates reported 67.8 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

Sharon Fleshman, senior associate director at Career Services for the Nursing School, suggests the increase in full-time employment may be a reflection of a strengthening employment market for nurses with bachelor of science in nursing degrees, which had slowed down after the recession of 2009-2010.

“Over the past several years, there has been an issue with the job market for our new graduate nurses. Based on the recession, there has been less retirement and less turnover with registered nurses, with nurses coming back to the workforce,” she said. “There are a lot of dynamics that might have fed into the job market as it is.”

In regard to the seeming strength of the current job market for Nursing graduates, Fleshman noted increased efforts by Career Services as a causal element for higher employment rates. The department now places a heavier emphasis on networking and encourages students to connect with nurse managers, evidenced by the 2011 creation of Nurse Manager Panels, which make nurse managers more accessible to and approachable by Nursing students.

Contact with nurse managers allows students to “make the most of their clinical rotations,” which may lead to a more secure path to employment.

The response rate to the career plans survey decreased from 85 percent in 2011 to 72 percent in 2012.

The average starting salary decreased marginally from $56,665 in 2011 to $56,051 in 2012, with both of these numbers reflecting a substantial decrease from the average starting salary of $60,325 reported in 2010.

The number of Nursing graduates attending graduate school also dropped considerably from 26 percent in 2011 to only 9 percent in 2012, a statistic likely correlated to the higher employment rate, according to Rose and Fleshman.

“Many Penn Nursing students eventually do plan on going back to school, but I do think going to school right after undergraduate is impacted by the job market,” Fleshman said.

The remaining statistics closely mirror those of previous years.

The vast majority of Nursing graduates who found full-time employment will work in Pennsylvania, with 19 graduates working for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. This may be a result of the clinical rotations that are part of the Nursing degree program. Additionally, 64 percent found employment in the Mid-Atlantic region, down from 70 percent in 2011.

Of the students surveyed, only 6 percent are still actively seeking employment, a statistic similar among the other undergraduate schools, with 7 percent of College graduates, 5 percent of Engineering graduates, and 5.5 percent of Wharton graduates also seeking employment at the time of the survey.

“Every year we hope we’ll get our job market back to where it was,” Fleshman said.

Author: Anita Prinz, MSN, RN, CWOCN, CFNC, COS-C

WHEN MY GRANDPARENTS were children, they communicated in person or by letter. In my parents’ generation, the telephone became popular. Today, much of our communication takes place through social media—namely, social networking websites and services. Websites such as Facebook® and LinkedIn® and social media services such as Twitter® let us connect with a network of friends and colleagues to share ideas, updates, and events in a virtual community. Many nursing organizations are accessible on these sites. For instance, if you use the microblogging service Twitter, you can get up-to-the minute mini-messages ("tweets") on your cell phone from colleagues, or you can follow organizations such as the American Nurses Association (ANA) and Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI).

Using social media for professional networking with colleagues worldwide is proving to be an effective way to advance your career. It’s easy and free, too. Social networking helps nurses think more globally and understand nursing perspectives in other parts of the country and world. Online nursing groups give you unlimited opportunities to network with like-minded nurses in your profession or specialty.

To network with peers in your specialty, you can join a nursing group or form your own specialty nursing group. You can stay in touch with group members by registering with the social media websites they use and creating a profile. Use of these websites is fairly intuitive for the average computer user.

FaceBook, the largest social networking site, claims to have more than 500 million active users around the world connecting to an average of 80 community pages, groups, and events. Professional nursing associations such as the ANA and journals such as American Nurse Today have Facebook pages that allow users to connect with an online community of nurses.

LinkedIn claims it has 100 million members worldwide and is gaining about 1 million new members every week. It maintains it gives users the keys to controlling their online identities because its subscriber profiles rise to the top of Google and other search engine results. With its job search tools and company pages, LinkedIn is a great site if you’re looking for work or exploring career options. You can search for employers you want to research and find out which companies’ profiles are the most viewed, fastest growing, and most connected. Posting your profile (which should include a photo of yourself, your current position, where you work, past work experience, and education) helps the right people and opportunities find you.

Twitter users can send and receive tweets (up to 140 characters) via the Twitter website, compatible external applications such as smart phones, or the Short Message Service (SMS). While Twitter use is free, accessing it through SMS may incur phone-service provider fees. Tweets communicate up-to-the-moment updates of any person or organization you’re following. ANA and STTI are a few of the nursing organizations that can tell you "what’s happening" on Twitter.

Some organizations are trying out their own social networking sites, such as STTI’s The Circle (www.nursingsociety.org/Pages/TheCircle.aspx). These sites require you to be a member of the organization.

Social media and nursing education

Social media can enhance nursing education. Some nursing schools have started to use social media to enhance their classrooms. For instance, Mesa Community College in Arizona has a manikin named Stella Bellman who has her own Facebook page. Stella provides welcome messages and notices about exams; more importantly, she provides simulation scenarios for students. Harriet L. Schwartz, PhD, assistant professor of professional leadership at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, calls Facebook her "cyber hallway" where she provides relational mentoring to her students.

Hospital networking sites

Many hospitals and other healthcare organizations are creating their own social networking sites and blogs as a marketing and outreach tool. As of May 2011, 965 U.S. hospitals were using social networking. One example is the Mayo Clinic (http://sharing.mayoclinic.org), which has blogs where patients and others can share their stories of strength and hope.

Make sure to find out your employer’s policies on using social media. Many healthcare organizations prohibit employees from using social media at work or using an organizational handle on a social networking site (such as Mary.nurse@hospitalxyz.org).

Privacy concerns

Sharing information on social networking sites is easy—too easy, some might say. Health care is one of the most regulated professions in the United States, and nurses are held to the highest standard of confidentiality. When using social media, always adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations and maintain professional boundaries of the nurse-patient relationship.

Revealing private patient information is a leading type of social-networking misuse. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) has published “Professional boundaries: A nurse’s guide to the importance of appropriate professional boundaries,” which addresses some of the issues involved. Currently, the ANA is revising its Code of Ethics for Nurses to include principles of social networking.

The distinction between the privacy of one’s personal life versus one’s work life is a gray area poorly defined by current laws. Consider this: Should your patient be your Facebook friend? Patricia Sullivan, APN, FNP-BC, states, "accepting a patient’s ‘friend’ request can damage the nurse-patient therapeutic relationship." When a patient becomes privy to a nurse’s personal information, erosion of trust may occur.

Control how much you share

Social networking sites offer tools that let you control how you share your information and communications; options include sharing with everyone and sharing with friends only. Sharing with friends only is recommended as the default—yet making it your default doesn’t guarantee your posts will stay between friends. For example, suppose you post something witty about a challenging patient, while withholding names and identifying remarks. Your friends find your comments amusing and repost it on their Facebook “walls,” where friends of their friends see it and repost it on their own sites. Now your friends-only message has gone viral and is circulating around the social-media universe—and potentially can get back to the patient or your supervisor.

Nurses have been terminated for posting even seemingly harmless statements, such as "My job is boring." Five California nurses lost their jobs and are facing disciplinary action for discussing a patient on Facebook even though their posts included no names, photos, or identifying information.

Tom Breslin, Associate Director of Labor Education for the Massachusetts Nurses Association, suggests following these rules when using social networking sites:

• Assume anything you post will be read by everyone, especially those you don’t want reading it.
• If there’s something you don’t want your employer to read or to know about you, don’t post it.
• Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your spouse, child, parent, or employer to read. (See Social networking: Some do’s and don’ts by clicking the PDF icon above.)

Realize the risks

Most employers can terminate employees for making disparaging comments about their employer, coworkers, or patients. Posting defamatory remarks on the Internet can lead to civil lawsuits alleging defamation or slander. What’s more, postings to social media sites generally are considered permanent, even if you delete them. Electronic information is easily distributed, archived, and downloaded, and copies of your deleted posts may still exist on search engines or in friends’ electronic files.

You might ask, "What about my freedom of speech?" Privacy in the United States is a given natural right guaranteed by several constitutional amendments. But U.S. laws regarding digital rights vary by jurisdiction. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been working actively with employees who believe they’ve been terminated unjustly for social networking activity. A Connecticut ambulance driver was fired for posting negative comments about her supervisor on Facebook; the case was settled by the NLRB more than 6 months later, but the employee’s reputation has been damaged.

Is your boss watching?

Nursing recruiters pore over social networking sites for new nursing hires. Many nursing employers use these sites to do background and character checks, scanning them for questionable posts or photographs of employees or applicants. In multiple cases, nurses have been terminated for violating employers’ Internet communication policies, and some employers have rejected applicants based on Facebook or other postings that cast the applicants in a bad light.

Social networking is a great tool you can use to expand your professional network, connect with colleagues, and increase your nursing knowledge. But using it carelessly can imperil your job and livelihood. Let common sense and discretion guide you online. Maintain appropriate boundaries and privacy and adhere to your employer’s code of professional conduct and social networking policies. Remember—you’re a professional nurse 24/7.

Note: This article is not meant to constitute legal advice.

From NCSBN

The use of social media and other electronic communication is expanding exponentially as the number social media outlets, platforms and applications available continue to increase. Individuals use blogs, social networking sites, video sites, online chat rooms and forums to communicate both personally and professionally with others. Social media is an exciting and valuable tool when used wisely. The very nature of this medium however can pose a risk as it offers instantaneous posting opportunities that allow little time for reflective thought and carries the added burden that what is posted on the Internet is discoverable by law even when it is long deleted.

Because of inappropriate use of social media, some nurses have lost their jobs, been disciplined by the Board of Nursing, been highlighted in national media, been a target of lawsuits, and been criminally charged. What do nurses need to know so that they can use social media, both personally and professionally, without worrying about repercussions? NCSBN has developed some guidelines for using social media responsibly.

NCSBN is thrilled to announce that they have collaborated with the American Nurse’s Association (ANA) on the professional use of social media. NCSBN has endorsed ANA’s principles of using social media, and ANA has endorsed NCSBN’s guidelines. ANA and NCSBN recently hosted a collaborative Webinar and they are planning further collaborative efforts to get the word out about using social media appropriately without harming patients. These are the social media guidelines from the National Student Nurse Association. NSNA Social Media Guidelines.