Long-term care organizational challenges and strategies art vs. regulation.

1. Long-term residents of nursing homes, especially those with chronic deteriorating illnesses, may be at risk of overly rigorous treatment or abandonment because they do not fit the typical rehabilitative or terminal care planning models. 2.

Hospital smoking policies: who enforces them?

As opprobrium is increasingly given to the act of smoking, many institutions--hospitals especially--are seeking to curtail the amount of smoking that occurs within their buildings through various policies. This, however, raises two necessary questions: What does policy enforcement mean? And who shall enforce the rules? The article below discusses the results of a survey of North Carolina hospitals that asked these questions and more.

Nurses counseling patients about smoking cessation--why, when, and how.

In patient health education, nurses are a natural choice for on-the-spot counsellors and teachers. Yet many nurses feel uncomfortable about broaching subjects such as smoking cessation with their patients or the patients' families. The authors argue that it is time for nursing programs and hospitals to prepare and encourage nurses to take the initiative in smoking-cessation counseling.