Staffing levels are the center of attention at Tufts Medical Center in Boston as registered nurses announced on Monday the threat of a one-day strike. The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the labor union that represents 23,000 members, told The Boston Globe that recent staff cuts mean nurses are caring for even more patients at a time. The union also says the changes have changed the hospital from one of the best staffed in Boston to the...  Read More »

An ambulance service in North Carolina has launched a new program that lets people who call 911 with minor concerns speak to a nurse before deciding whether to be transported to a hospital by ambulance. Nurses at Carolinas Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital, in Charlotte, NC, are on hand to speak to people who call 911 with minor problems such as nausea, nosebleeds, or constipation, if they prefer not to be immediately transported...  Read More »

Annual competency assessments can sometimes be a tiresome task for nurses and for educators. Every organization completes assessment differently. At St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, OK, staff were bored of the repetitiveness of annual competency assessment, while managers were frustrated with the lack of staff completing requirements. To get staff interested and engaged in the competency assessment, educators decided to hold a fair around...  Read More »

Virtual technology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, is allowing nurses to interact as avatars with each other and with patients using the website Second Life. Vanderbilt was given $1.6 million by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create and launch the project through the agency’s Nurse Education Technologies program, reports The Tennessean. Right now, the project is only a pilot while the university conducts...  Read More »

When a patient walks through those hospital doors, just how many people are there to assist him or her? Nursing blogger, The Nerdy Nurse, recently discussed this topic in a post “How many people are involved in patient care?” When her preceptor was showing her an infection control report, author realized just how many people take part in the care of a new patient. She thinks most noses don’t think about how much goes on behind the...  Read More »

Forget top 40 hits or country music, radio has some new voices: registered nurses. Nurse Talk has hit the air in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston Metro Area. The show was created by Casey Hobbs, RN, a 30-year veteran of nursing, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Hobbs’ goal is to make the nursing profession more visible. Segments of the show include advice for other nurses, healthcare news, and phobias of the week. The show occasionally...  Read More »

“You’re gonna have to man up here and take some of the pain because we can’t give you a lot of medication.” That’s what Sarah May Casareto, RN, is alleged to have said to a patient who screamed in pain during his November 8 surgery at Abbot Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. Turns out, she couldn’t give him more of his medication because she had taken it herself prior to surgery. The patient, undergoing surgery...  Read More »

Researchers from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, are looking to use robotic “nurses” in operating rooms by using a hand gesture recognition system. The hand gesture recognition system uses a camera and a formula that finds the location of the surgeon’s head and triggers where the robot’s hands will go, reported Daily Tech. Researchers hope that the new technology will decrease the length of surgeries. Juan Pablo Wachs, an...  Read More »

Every nurse knows the line “If it isn’t charted, it isn’t done.” Theresa Brown, RN, writes this week about how the burden of charting takes a toll on time spent with patients in The New York Times Well blog. Brown recounts how she sat at a conference and experienced something akin to envy as she listened to a Navy commander speak of his time spent with American soldiers in Afghanistan who had been injured. Brown noted the amount...  Read More »

What’s the difference between a leader and a manager? Nursing blogger The Nerdy Nurse feels that leaders aren’t always the same people who are managers. She finds that managers can be seen as hindrances to change, and concerns with money and budgeting get in the way of creating teamwork and promoting positive relationships with their staff. Read more in her recent blog post ‘What defines a Nurse Manager or Nurse Leader.’   Read More »