I've worked at three different hospitals over the past five years. Each one has had a different process of dealing with Medication Reconciliation, but I believe my current facility has created the best idea of all: A Medication Reconciliation Technician role.  Her primary responsibility is to interview patients to obtain the most ...

(Editor's note: This guest blog was written by Suzanne LeBeau, BSN, RN, CLNC.) We all know the scenario. You're getting report on your sixth patient and the nurse who is giving report is spent, burnt out and just wants to go home to her cozy bed. As you may imagine, the conversation may go like this: First nurse: ''In room 320 is Mr. Jones, a ...

As most everyone knows by now, nurses have for several years been ranked the ''Most Trusted Profession'' in an annual Gallup survey of Americans. But now a new study reveals nurses are also very good at assessing the quality of care delivered in the hospital units in which they work.  In short, it turns out nurses are not only trustworthy ...

Twelve-hour shifts have gotten some bad press. They've been linked to medical errors, nurse burnout and, now, higher rates of obesity in nurses. Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Nursing, Baltimore, surveyed 2,103 female nurses and revealed nurses with long work hours were significantly more likely to be obese compared with ...

My husband says we can't remember everything about a book or a movie or a vacation, so our minds fixate on the most vivid impression and that's what we remember. I just finished reading Nursing in the Storm: Voices from Hurricane Katrina by Denise Danna, DNS, RN, and Sandra E. Cordray, MA, MJ. I set the book down with strong impressions of ...

When nurses go on strike, it can be a thankless undertaking. They may be fighting for an ideal of better patient care, while at the same time walking away from the patients for whom they are caring. It's a ''damned if you do, damned if you don't'' situation. At Philadelphia's Temple University Hospital (TUH), that scenario is playing out as some ...

Did you read the article on the ADVANCE Web site about the nurse who has been acquitted after whistle blowing on a doctor? What she and her colleague must have gone through! And for doing the right thing! Even as they were following the proper employer channels and still not getting results, they were brave enough to take it farther, and lost ...

If you think the fictional Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe are bad for nursing’s image, just wait until you hear about one real-life nurse in California. Like many, I could not escape the media frenzy following Michael Jackson’s death. Internet, TV, newspapers, magazines and even my iPhone was giving me minute details of the singer’s final days, his ...