Systems Addressing Frail Elders (SAFE) Care: Description of Successful Partnerships Across Hospitals.

Systems Addressing Frail Elders (SAFE) Care is an interprofessional team-based program, which was developed and evaluated in a cluster randomized controlled trial. Results of this trial included reduced length of stay and complications for patients. This article describes a successful partnership across 4 Magnet hospitals in the dissemination of the model.

Identification and team-based interprofessional management of hospitalized vulnerable older adults.

Background: Extended hospital stays and complications are common among older adults and may lead to morbidity and loss of independence. Specialized geriatric units have been shown to improve outcomes but, with the growing numbers of older adults, may be difficult to scale to meet needs.

Purpose: The purpose was to evaluate a quality improvement initiative that redesigned unit-based workflow and trained interprofessional teams on general medical/surgical units to create care plans for vulnerable older adults using principles of comprehensive geriatric assessment and team management.

Ensuring the availability of the nursing workforce through philanthropy: a case study.

The Institute of Medicine report on the Future of Nursing identified the need to increase the preparation of nurses, create pathways for nurses to lead as partners to improve health by promoting interprofessional education and practice, and to remove barriers to full practice of nurses across the continuum. This case study shares the experience of large systems and their creativity using philanthropy in their quest to ensure the availability of a qualified nursing workforce.

Excellence and evidence in staffing: a data-driven model for excellence in staffing (2nd edition).

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, 2010) and the Institute of Medicine's (IOM, 2011) Future of Nursing report have prompted changes in the U.S. health care system.

Validating SPICES as a Screening Tool for Frailty Risks among Hospitalized Older Adults.

Older patients are vulnerable to adverse hospital events related to frailty. SPICES, a common screening protocol to identify risk factors in older patients, alerts nurses to initiate care plans to reduce the probability of patient harm. However, there is little published validating the association between SPICES and measures of frailty and adverse outcomes.

Early recognition of risk factors for adverse outcomes during hospitalization among Medicare patients: a prospective cohort study.

Background: There is a persistently high incidence of adverse events during hospitalization among Medicare beneficiaries. Attributes of vulnerability are prevalent, readily apparent, and therefore potentially useful for recognizing those at greatest risk for hospital adverse events who may benefit most from preventive measures. We sought to identify patient characteristics associated with adverse events that are present early in a hospital stay.

Interview with quality leaders: Dr. Donna E. Shalala and Dr. Linda Burnes Bolton on the committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiative on The Future of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine. Interviewed by Diane Storer Brown.

The Institute of Medicine released a consensus report in October 2010, titled The Future of Nursing (FON): Leading Change, Advancing Health, which concluded significant change was needed in nurses' roles, responsibilities, and education to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by health care reform and to advance improvements in America's increasingly complex health system (http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing-Leading-Change-Advancing-Health.

Technology solutions can make nursing care safer and more efficient.

The shortage of registered nurses in hospitals threatens to cripple healthcare delivery in the next three to five years. The demand for nursing care has increased while the willingness of nurses to stay at the bedside in acute-care settings has decreased. The American Academy of Nursing Workforce Commission developed and tested a process called Technology Drill Down in more than 200 medical-surgical patient care units in a study supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Video rounding system: a pilot study in patient care.

Background And Purpose: Integration of information technology (IT) with health care improvement is ever increasing. National initiatives, such as Transforming Care at the Bedside, and physician-nurse collaboration committees use IT to enhance patient care. We sought to determine the impact of "video rounding" on the post-operative care of endourologic inpatients.

Nursing practice and work environment issues in the 21st century: a leadership challenge.

A leadership conference titled "Have Patient Safety and the Workforce Shortage Created the Perfect Storm?" was held in honor of Dr. Ada Sue Hinshaw, who was ending her tenure as dean of the University of Michigan School of Nursing. A morning panel on the preferred future for practice featured plenary speaker Dr.

Vaginal birth after cesarean: do California hospital policies follow national guidelines?

Objective: To review whether California hospitals are adhering to national practice guidelines with regard to vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC).

Study Design: We performed a content analysis of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and American Association of Family Physicians published guidelines and identified 39 specific recommendations, which were categorized into the following 5 content areas: patient criteria, procedure, staff and resources, uterine rupture or other complications, and miscellaneous clinical issues. We evaluated individual hospital policies with regard to adherence to 34 recommendations made specifically by ACOG.

Roundup: perspectives on a perfect storm.

This article offers perspectives on the nursing shortage and how to deal with them from a variety of healthcare leaders.

The impact of nursing interventions: overview of effective interventions, outcomes, measures, and priorities for future research.

The purpose of this article is to present findings from a review of published systematic/integrative reviews and meta-analyses on nursing interventions and patient outcomes in acute care settings. A literature search was conducted for the period 1999-2005, producing 4,000 systematic/integrative reviews and 500 meta-analyses covering seven topics selected by the authors: elder care, caregivers, developmental care of neonates and infants, symptom management, pressure ulcer prevention/treatment, incontinence, and staffing. The association between nursing care interventions/processes and patient outcomes in acute care settings was found to be limited in the articles reviewed.