About a month ago, I wrote about the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) AACN Nurse Residency Program,TM which dramatically decreased turnover rates for nurses in their first year on the job. The blog post prompted Daniel McCarthy, a retired airline pilot and flight instructor, as well as an aircraft mechanic, to write a comment. At 53, McCarthy went to nursing school and later became a nurse. Despite his experience in the tough field of aviation, which...  Read More »

With a shortage of primary care physicians, and the possibility that healthcare reform will exacerbate the problem by increasing the number of people with insurance, many healthcare providers and experts-along with 28 states-are debating how nurse practitioners (NP) fit into the solution. In Massachusetts, where universal healthcare has already been implemented, a law was passed in 2008 requiring health plans to recognize and reimburse NPs as primary care providers....  Read More »

How do you help nurses understand and feel competent in end-of-life care? Simulate death. That’s the approach studied by Kim Leighton, PhD, RN, CNE, and Jenna Dubas, MSN, RN, as a way to successfully teach nurses about end-of-life care. The study, published in Clinical Simulation in Nursing, looked at how nursing students and practicing nurses could increase self-efficacy and competency levels for end-of-life care. (Click here to read the abstract. Full...  Read More »

A recent Orlando Sentinel article discusses the Oregon Center for Nursing’s (OCN) “Are you man enough to be a nurse” campaign that was launched in 2002. The campaign included a poster designed to recruit males to enter the nursing profession and help break down stereotypes, according to OCN, which used a black and white poster with men dressed in scrubs, business suits and athletic clothing and asks “Are you man enough to be a nurse?” Interestingly,...  Read More »

The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) AACN Nurse Residency ProgramTM (NRP) has helped program participants achieve a 4.4% turnover rate of first-year nurses–quite a feat, considering the national rate is 27.1%. So far, 61 sites have incorporated the program, which equates to about 16,000 participating nurses since 2002. In 2009, 11 participating sites had a 100% retention rate. It seems the key to the program is providing practice clinical training....  Read More »