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 »

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 »

A few weeks ago, media reports touted a robotic bedside nurse named Actroid-F that is being tested in Japan. Now comes news of Cody, the patient hygiene robotic nurse. Cody was created by a group from the Georgia Institute of Technology Healthcare Robotics Lab, lead by Chih-Hung King, MD. The researchers looked into elderly people and those with disabilities who have difficulty with activities of daily living, such as personal hygiene. Cody...  Read More »

Picture this: You’re propped up in a hospital bed waiting to receive a test while a nurse sits by your bed. It’s not really a nurse though; it’s a robot. Her name is Actroid-F, and according to News Gather, she is the first realistic robotic nurse being tested in Japanese hospitals. She was created by the Kokoro Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, and was designed to be an observing nurse who sits bedside with a patient as they undergo different...  Read More »

Nurses at Watsonville Community Hospital in Watsonville, CA, didn’t want more money on top of their average salary of $140,000 in a new proposed contract. Instead, this week, they asked for more nurses to improve patient care. The hospital sent a statement to KIONrightknow: “The registered nurses walked off the job for a three-day strike, despite being offered a contract proposal that includes a wage increase.” Initially, the nurses...  Read More »

Nurses care for hundreds of patients during their career. Ask any nurse and they’ll have happy stories, sad stories, crazy stories, and even horror stories of difficult patients they’ve dealt with. A blog by psychiatric nurse Angela Brook speaks about difficult patients: “We do not always like the patients to whom we administer care. It sounds harsh, but let’s be honest, we do not have to like them. We do however, have to provide...  Read More »

Nurses give their patients time, attention, nursing care and assessment, and even find time to offer a sympathetic hand to hold. But a nurse in Billings, MT, gave one of her patients something more: one of her kidneys. Vickie Lindt, a nurse at Billings Clinic, went under the knife to give her patient, Roger Gravgaard, the kidney transplant her desperately needed. Though the surgery happened in August, Lindt and Gravgaard are only now going...  Read More »

A new survey found that patients in the Northwest believe nurse practitioners provide primary care that is just as good as physicians. Oregon Public Broadcasting News just completed a survey of 1,200 residents of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho comparing the quality of treatment provided by nurse practitioners and physicians. The survey found that 49% of Northwesterners agreed that they receive treatment from a nurse that’s just as good...  Read More »

Coffee and dirty linens all over the floor are two things that patients, family members, and staff do not want to see in a hospital room. However, last week at Oklahoma State University’s Medical Center, a patient’s room had both, part of an exercise known as “Forty Wrong Room.” The goal was to help nurses and other staff members remember patient safety rules. In the exercise, 40 different things were wrong in the mock room and nurses...  Read More »

Do you notice your patient’s gowns or how they feel in them? Most nurses have plenty of other things to worry about, but a recent article in the Los Angeles Times about one woman who put some effort toward designing new gowns might give more prominence to hospital gowns. The woman, Jeanne Ryan, executive liaison and RN in executive health at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, considers the gown another piece to the patient satisfaction...  Read More »