Best Practices for Promoting Safe Patient Care Delivery by Hospital-Based Traveling Clinical Staff: An Integrative Review.

Background: Hospitals use traveling clinical staff (TCS) to fill personnel shortages. Although this approach may help improve staffing ratios, it is not without risk.

Purpose: The interdisciplinary team conducted an integrative literature review to determine best practices for promoting safe patient care delivery by TCS.

Decreasing Nurses' Anxiety About Pediatric End-of-Life Care With Simulation.

Background: Caring for pediatric patients at the end of life (EOL) can lead to anxiety and burnout for critical care nurses. New graduate nurses (NGNs) often report receiving inadequate education related to EOL care and then enter the workforce with limited clinical experience in caring for patients at EOL. A quality improvement project at a pediatric academic hospital sought to determine whether a simulation-based educational program for NGNs working in critical care could reduce anxiety about EOL care.

A decade of outcomes: The evolution of an australasian outcomes collaboration for chronic pain services.

Since the establishment of the electronic Persistent Pain Outcomes Collaboration (ePPOC) in 2013, ongoing improvements in benchmarking and quality improvement activities have provided the opportunity for ePPOC to grow to support more than one hundred adult and pediatric services delivering care to Individuals living with persistent pain throughout Australia and New Zealand. These improvements straddle multiple domains, including benchmarking and indicators reports, internal and external research collaboration and the integration of quality improvement initiatives with pain services. This paper outlines improvements undertaken and lessons learned in relation to the growth and maintenance of a comprehensive outcomes registry and its articulation with pain services and the wider pain sector.

Changing the Culture of Pediatric Palliative Care at the Bedside.

The benefits of palliative care services have been widely documented; however, many organizations are unable to financially support the number of professionals needed to meet the growing demand. Nurses receive minimal training in palliative care, and the resulting knowledge gap can lead to a lack of confidence when providing the essential aspects of palliative care. Recognizing the needs of patients and staff, one organization created a Palliative Care Champions Program to support and educate bedside staff.

Physician and Nurse Practitioner Attitudes on Generic Prescribing of Oral Contraceptive Pills and Antidepressants.

Importance: As prescription drug costs rise, it is important to understand attitudes among primary care physicians and nurse practitioners (NPs) towards generic drugs.

Objective: We aimed to examine the generic skepticism index (GSI) among primary care clinicians, and their willingness to discuss and prescribe generic antidepressants (ADs) and generic oral contraceptives (OCPs).

Design: We used a factorial vignette design survey to test 4 factors: message source, message, brand preference, and drug class.

Development and testing of a module to promote generic oral contraceptive prescribing among nurse practitioners.

Although generic oral contraceptives (OCPs) can improve adherence and reduce health care expenditures, use of generic OCPs remains low, and the factors that affect generic prescribing are not well understood. We aimed to understand the barriers and facilitators of generic OCP prescribing and potential solutions to increase generic OCP prescribing, as well as pilot an educational module to address clinician misconceptions about generic OCPs. We developed focus group scripts using the 4D model of appreciative inquiry.

Development and testing of a web module to IMPROVE generic prescribing of oral contraceptives among primary care physicians.

What Is Known And Objective: The use of generic oral contraceptives (OCPs) can improve adherence and reduce healthcare costs, yet scepticism of generic drugs remains a barrier to generic OCP discussion and prescription. An educational web module was developed to reduce generic scepticism related to OCPs, improve knowledge of generic drugs and increase physician willingness to discuss and prescribe generic OCPs.

Methods: A needs assessment was completed using in-person focus groups at American College of Physicians (ACP) Annual Meeting and a survey targeting baseline generic scepticism.

Introduction to four reviews addressing critical topics identified by the 2015 Nurse Practitioner Research Agenda Roundtable: Priorities for policy, workforce, education, and practice.

Background And Purpose: In 2015, an invitational think tank was convened by the Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners to update the 2010 Nurse Practitioner (NP) Research Agenda Roundtable. This effort was undertaken to provide guidance for future health care research. The purpose of this article is to introduce the process used for conducting four reviews that address critical topics related to specific research priorities emanating from the 2015 NP Research Agenda Roundtable.

American Association of Nurse Practitioners National Nurse Practitioner sample survey: Update on acute care nurse practitioner practice.

Background And Purpose: Data from national surveys on the practice of nurse practitioners (NPs) provides valuable information on aspects of practice, demographic characteristics of providers and patients, plans for continued employment, and role satisfaction. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) has been conducting the AANP Sample Survey since 1988.

Methods: The most recent AANP Sample Survey was conducted in 2016 with a random stratified survey of 40,000 NPs.

A Nurse-Led Innovation in Education: Implementing a Collaborative Multidisciplinary Grand Rounds.

Multidisciplinary grand rounds provides an opportunity to promote excellence in patient care through scholarly presentations and interdisciplinary collaboration with an innovative approach. In addition, multidisciplinary grand rounds serves to recognize expertise of staff, mentor and support professional development, and provide a collaborative environment across all clinical disciplines and support services. This article describes a process model developed by nurse educators for implementing a multidisciplinary grand rounds program.

The Direct Observation of Nurse Practitioner Care study: An overview of the NP/patient visit.

Background And Purpose: While there is a preponderance of studies that demonstrate the quality of nurse practitioner (NP) practice, little is known on the practice style of NPs. The Direct Observation of Nurse Practitioner Care study provided the first national direct observation and characterization of patient care delivered by primary care NPs.

Methods: The setting for this study was ambulatory care practices of NPs located throughout the United States.

Preparing the next generation of health care providers: A description and comparison of nurse practitioner and medical student tuition in 2015.

Background And Purpose: The purpose of this study was twofold: to describe the average cost of nurse practitioner (NP) tuition based on degree program, program type, and geography; and to compare the cost of NP tuition to medical school tuition.

Methods: A listing of all NP degree granting universities was obtained from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing during the fall of 2014, and tuition data were obtained from university websites. Medical school tuition data were obtained online during the fall of 2014 from the American Association of Medical Colleges.

Characteristics of nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the United States.

Background: Nurse practitioners (NP) and physician assistants (PA) serve as independent or semiautonomous providers and as fundamental members of healthcare teams.

Purpose: Differentiating roles of health professionals is needed for optimal employment utilization. Clinically practicing PAs and NPs were characterized.

Increased concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Alpine streams during annual snowmelt: investigating effects of sampling method, site characteristics, and meteorology.

Silicone passive samplers and macroinvertebrates were used to measure time-integrated concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in alpine streams during annual snowmelt. The three sampling sites were located near a main highway in Arthur's Pass National Park in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. A similar set of PAH congeners, composed of 2-4 rings, were found in silicone passive samplers and macroinvertebrates.

Interspecific effects of 4A-DNT (4-amino-2,6-dinitrotoluene) and RDX (1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine) in Japanese quail, Northern bobwhite, and Zebra finch.

The purpose of this study was to assess the toxicological effects of two munition compounds, 4-amino-2,6-dinitrotoluene (4A-DNT) and 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), on three different bird species: two common toxicological model species-the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) and the Japanese Quail (Coturnix japonica), and a representative passerine-the Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Bobwhite were exposed to 4A-DNT at 0, 8, 15, 30, 60, or 150 mg/kg body weight (bw) d by oral gavage for seven days; because the high dose of 4A-DNT was lethal to bobwhite, the maximum dose was changed to 100 mg/kg bw d for Japanese quail and finches to ensure tissue could be used for future toxicogenomic work. RDX was similarly administered at 0, 0.

Health-related outcomes of adverse childhood experiences in Texas, 2002.

Introduction: We assessed the prevalence of 7 childhood adversities (psychological, physical, and sexual abuse; household mental illness; household substance abuse; maternal battery; and incarceration of a household member) and the associations of those adversities with health outcomes.

Methods: Using data from 5,378 people who responded to the 2002 Texas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey (which included questions about childhood adversity), we created 4 groups: no childhood abuse or household dysfunction, childhood abuse only, household dysfunction only, and both childhood abuse and household dysfunction. We examined groups by sociodemographic variables and the association with current smoking, obesity, and self-rated health.

Galectin 3 induces a distinctive pattern of cytokine and chemokine production in rheumatoid synovial fibroblasts via selective signaling pathways.

Objective: High expression of galectin 3 at sites of joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) suggests that galectin 3 plays a role in RA pathogenesis. Previous studies have demonstrated the effects of galectins on immune cells, such as lymphocytes and macrophages. This study was undertaken to investigate the hypothesis that galectin 3 induces proinflammatory effects in RA by modulating the pattern of cytokine and chemokine production in synovial fibroblasts.

Psychometric properties of the Marlowe-Crowne social desirability scale with adult male sexual offenders.

This research project investigates the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) when used with a sample of convicted, adult male sexual offenders. Results confirm the two-factor structure (Denial and Attribution) originally proposed by the authors (Study 1, n = 247). Results also reveal that the full-scale MCSDS has strong internal consistency estimates (Study 1), discriminant and convergent validity (Study 2, n = 91), and test-retest reliability over a 3-week period (Study 3, n = 74).

Public awareness and use of direct-to-consumer genetic tests: results from 3 state population-based surveys, 2006.

We conducted population-based surveys on direct-to-consumer nutrigenomic testing in Michigan, Oregon, and Utah as part of the 2006 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Awareness of the tests was highest in Oregon (24.4%) and lowest in Michigan (7.

The effects of the herbicide metolachlor on agonistic behavior in the crayfish, Orconectes rusticus.

Previous research suggests that agricultural herbicides interfere with olfactory-mediated behavior, such as responses to alarm signals and the ability to locate food, in aquatic organisms. In crayfish, aggressive interactions are also mediated by chemical signals. These social signals are important in establishing dominance, which in turn has an impact on an individual's ability to find and use mates, food, and habitat space.

Dissemination of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica Serovar Typhimurium var. Copenhagen clonal types through a contract heifer-raising operation.

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium var. Copenhagen isolates from a heifer-raising operation and from 11 dairy herds that had their calves contracted to the heifer-raising operation were examined for their phenotypic and genotypic characteristics.

Family history, diabetes, and other demographic and risk factors among participants of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2002.

Introduction: Family history of diabetes has been recognized as an important risk factor of the disease. Family medical history represents valuable genomic information because it characterizes the combined interactions between environmental, behavioral, and genetic factors. This study examined the strength and effect of having a family history of diabetes on the prevalence of self-reported, previously diagnosed diabetes among adult participants of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 199-2002.