AAN News & Opinion
Women’s health in jeopardy: Failure to curb unintended pregnancies: A statement from the AAN Women’s Health Expert Panel
Care of and access to health care for women across the age span has always been at the forefront of nursing’s advocacy through education, practice, and research. One well-recognized method to improve the health status of women and children lies in managing unintended pregnancies; however, evidence shows that little progress has been made on this front. Threatening to roll back what little progress has been made, as well as the potential to achieve better management of unintended pregnancies, contemporary health policy fails to consistently ensure access to high-quality reproductive health care for all women in the United States.The Fellow selection review process
The American Academy of Nursing (AAN) is an organization dedicated to serving the public and the nursing profession by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis, and dissemination of nursing knowledge.1Carpe diem: Nursing making inroads to improve mental health for elders
With 1 in every 5 adults over age 65 having mental illness, a projected 15 million will need services by 2030.1 Few nurses have specialized in geriatric mental health for a number of reasons: (1) The paucity of educational programs to prepare specialists, (2) the societal stigma associated with both aging and mental illness, (3) underpayment for services, and (4) lack of role models.2 Here we summarize the major accomplishments of the Academy’s Geropsychiatric Nursing Collaborative (GPNC), a Hartford-funded project designed to foster nursing’s contribution to the mental health of older Americans.Leadership needed to address the global nursing and midwifery workforce shortage
An estimated 4.2 million health care workers are needed to address the global shortage of human resources for health (HRH) to achieve global health and development goals.1 Internationally, nurses and midwives comprise the majority of the global health care workforce,2 and the World Health Assembly has passed several resolutions over the past 20 years recognizing the importance of strengthening the nursing and midwifery (N&M) workforce. For example, in 2001, Resolution WHA54.12 recommended establishing mechanisms to address the global shortage of nurses and midwives, and to strengthen their contribution at all levels including within the WHO itself.Performance measurement—A strategic imperative and a call to action: An overview of forthcoming papers from the American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel on Quality
In 2010, the American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel on Health Care Quality identified performance measurement in the transforming health care delivery system as a strategic imperative and agreed that a synthesis of key concepts was needed to guide policy and provide direction for the Academy and nursing’s partners in health care. Envisioned as a “call to action,” the Expert Panel affirmed the foci of target papers, recruited members as lead authors and co-authors, and launched an ambitious effort to develop 6 substantive position papers in 2011.The Future of Nursing Campaign for Action: State-level implementation efforts
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), in collaboration with AARP, has embarked on a national Campaign for Action that builds upon the findings in the landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. This Campaign seeks to advance comprehensive health care change by fully using the expertise and experience of all nurses.The surgeon general’s call to breastfeeding action-policy and practice implications for nurses
The lack of breastfeeding in the United States is a public health crisis. The World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and multiple other professional organizations all recommend that infants are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months; in the United States, however, only 13.6% of infants receive exclusive human milk for this time period.1-3 A 2010 study in the United States reported that 911 infant deaths could be prevented if breastfeeding rates were improved.4 On January 20, 2010, with the release of the Surgeon General’s Call to Breastfeeding Action, the US government released the most comprehensive plan to date of what needs to occur to improve breastfeeding outcomes and the health of our nation.Advance care planning as an urgent public health concern
The American Academy of Nursing endorses end-of-life conversations as essential for the care of patients with life-limiting conditions so that patients’ values and preferences for their care and treatment are honored. These conversations, formally known as advance care planning, should rightfully occur among health professionals, patients, and patients’ families.An update from the American Academy of Nursing's Workforce Commission
Since its inception in 2000, the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) Workforce Commission has focused on addressing the multiple factors that impede nursing workflow and the ability to achieve optimal clinical and operational outcomes. The Commission focused attention on ways technology could diminish demand on nurses' time by eliminating waste and enabling workflow, returning precious minutes of care to patients in acute care hospitals. Reducing demand is one strategy to abate cyclic nursing shortages.Guest Editorial: Intercontinental nursing
I regularly visit colleagues in Europe, North America, Australia, and South East Asia, and in my capacity as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Nursing, I process manuscripts from all of these parts of the world and more. Clearly, there would be little point in visiting other countries and continents if everything were the same as it was at home; it is the differences that draw us to travel and work in other countries and cultures, and the differences are apparent. For example, there could hardly be a greater contrast in cultures between Europe and South East Asia.Guest Editorial: History Matters
Washington is abuzz with history. Almost every commentator uses history to explain the foundations of critical issues and remind us how our modern problems and their solutions are shaped by historical perspectives. Thomas Freidman asks us to look back first to the Great Depression and later to the recession of the early 1970s to understand our current economic predicament and to develop useful strategies to overcome our own financial downturn. Our President, Barack Obama, has turned to economic historians Ben Bernanke and Christine Romer to chair, respectively, the Federal Reserve and the Council of Economic Advisors.The Academy's work on healthcare reforms
For those of us in Washington, DC, the last few months of healthcare reform debate represent what we have been anxiously waiting for—an opportunity to reform healthcare delivery so that more people receive the care they need. And even more importantly for us, it is an opportunity to enhance the healthcare system so that it recognizes and utilizes the expertise and innovations that nurses can bring to healthcare delivery. To this end, the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) volunteers and staff have been working diligently to bring forward the messages of the value of nurse innovations to health care the importance of meaningful technology and high quality in healthcare delivery and nursing's contribution to cost-effective care.Nurse Edge Runners—The hallmark of the Raise the Voice campaign
Nurse “Edge Runners”—the practical innovators who are leading the way in bringing new thinking and new methods to a wide range of healthcare challenges—are the hallmark of the American Academy of Nursing's Raise the Voice campaign. Edge Runners have developed options that help people stay healthy and cope better with illnesses, while producing exemplary financial and clinical outcomes. Furthermore, nurse-led innovations address people's needs and wants for a humane and effective health care system, reducing disparities while increasing efficiency and quality of patient care.AAN News
During his campaign and since taking office, President Barack Obama has made it clear that he wants major healthcare reform to happen as soon as possible. Learning from the 1990's healthcare reform debate, his team made the early decision that the White House would promote broad principles, not specific legislation. President Obama has, however, put the challenge to Congressional leaders to get the job done. And the Congressional leaders have taken up his challenge through direct action, unleashing years of pent-up energy to make healthcare reform a reality.An update from the American Academy of Nursing's Workforce Commission
The American Academy of Nursing formed the Workforce Commission in 2000 to develop strategies for combating the nursing shortage by reducing the demand on nurses' time. Over the past 4 years, the Commission's work has focused on describing the benefits of deploying technology to enhance patient safety, enable efficient workflows, and improve nurse retention. They are currently disseminating the results of their Technology Targets Project with continued funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.American Academy of Nursing's Raise the Voice Campaign
We are all aware that America's healthcare system is in desperate need of repair. Health care is inaccessible to many, expensive for most, and fragmented for all. Enabling the system to deliver the best possible care at an acceptable cost requires not just reformation but transformation—moving American health care away from its current hospital-based, acuity-oriented paradigm toward a patient-centered, convenient, helpful, and affordable system.Translating nursing knowledge into practice: An uncommon partnership
Evidence-Based Nursing Practice (EBNP) has the potential to transform and improve the quality of health care and the safety of patients. This will only occur to the extent that nursing research is made accessible and actionable for use by nurses at the bedside. The estimate that research can take up to 17 years to be translated into practice1 speaks to the enormous gap between academic and practice settings. Health information science and technology has been heralded as a significant factor in the translation of research and best evidence into the practice arena.Creating the context for technology: New realities for structure, media, space, and time
Context—circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting.1Technology—the use of scientific knowledge to solve practical problems; (Gr. tekhnologia—systematic treatment of an art or craft)1The newest and most exciting space—is where machines are actually in charge but have enough awareness to seek out people to help them when they get stuck. —Joe FlowersParticipating in national standards initiatives: A call to action
Nearly 3 million nurses are practicing in this country and constitute the largest single group of healthcare workers. Increasingly, they use information and communication technology in the form of patient monitoring systems, computers, the Internet, email, cellular phones, and other devices. Such technology should enhance nurses' ability to provide high-quality care that is based on best practices/evidence-based practice, improve the education of students, and advance the research agenda. However, many nurses in front line and management positions are frustrated by a lack of coordination, integration, and standardization when they use healthcare information systems.Bringing nurses into the boardroom
A large Midwest health system was implementing a new electronic health record (EHR) system expected to cost between $200 and $300 million. The board knew that other large health systems had phased in implementation of similar technology, requiring staff to come online first to allow any glitches to be worked out, with physicians coming on board after the initial training and testing. While acknowledging the need to be respectful of physicians' time, a nurse board member spoke out in strong support of shifting staff and physicians simultaneously – providing concrete, clinical examples of why this would be preferable – to eliminate the need for operating two different systems during the transition.Cognitive informatics: An essential component of nursing technology design
The implementation of various information technology (IT) systems designed to support, enhance and even transform healthcare delivery is inevitable. What is less certain, however, is whether or not these systems will be utilized to their greatest capacity and whether nurses will appreciate how IT systems can contribute to the knowledge base of nursing and to clinical practice. One might wonder why this seemingly counterintuitive discrepancy over information system usage and appreciation exists. The answer may very well lay behind the scenes in the infrastructure of the IT system and its user interfaces, especially in how closely the functions of the system resemble human cognition and practice patterns of the nurses utilizing them.Integration of nursing informatics in a specialty organization
Nursing specialty organizations have an essential role in building informatics capacity in the practice setting. Too frequently, however, discussions and publications about the integration of informatics overlook the needs of currently practicing frontline nurses. Clinical leaders cannot wait for a workforce educated with new informatics curricula. Strategies to advance information literacy and computer literacy in specialty practice are needed now. In addition, health information technology (HIT) needs to be shaped to collect specialty practice clinical data to support evidence-based decision-making.Information technology core competencies: From now to tomorrow
“Health Information Technology (HIT) can't change healthcare, but it has to be part of healthcare change.”1 According to John Loonsk, the Director of the Office of Interoperability and Standards at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services, there are current critical healthcare needs that can be facilitated by the use of HIT. These include the avoidance of medical error, improvement of resource utilization, acceleration of knowledge diffusion, reduction of variability in healthcare delivery and access, empowerment of consumers, strengthening of data privacy and protection, and promotion of public health.Using a standardized language to increase collaboration between research and practice
Research and practice are struggling to move from an era of separate silos to an era of genuine collaboration in order to support their common goal: improving the quality of health care. Many forces are converging to encourage collaboration1:Implications of the American Nurses Association Scope and Standards of Practice for nursing informatics for nurse educators: A discussion
In January 2008, the third revision of the Scope and Standards of Practice for Nursing Informatics was published. This document “articulates the essentials of nursing informatics, its accountabilities and activities for both nursing informatics specialists and generalists. Its standards are those by which all nurses practice nursing informatics, and reflect and specify practice priorities and perspectives.”1
