Publications by authors named "Ronda Hughes"

Background: As of May 2023, the novel SARS-CoV-2 has claimed nearly 7 million lives globally and >1.1 million lives in the United States. Low-income populations are often disproportionately affected by risk factors such as lifestyle, employment, and limited health literacy.

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The American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) led a nationwide strategic initiative during 2022 to cull best practices and strategies for nurse leaders. Two key objectives were targeted: 1) to gain keen insights from nurse leaders through 2 nationwide surveys; and 2) to collect practice-led initiatives, which often are not included in searchable peer-reviewed literature. These practices were gathered in a compendium, organized into 7 sections, which is now available on the AONL website at aonl.

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Leadership competencies represent the knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with effective leadership. This fall, the American Organization for Nursing Leadership published its core nursing leadership competencies that are intended to be measurable and translatable across the care continuum and throughout all levels of nursing leadership. In this column, the authors discuss these updated competencies and the relevance to practice, academia, and industry.

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Purpose Of Study: Evaluate the relationship between unplanned acute care utilization after discharge from an index hospital admission and registered nurse and patient perceptions of available instrumental support the patient would have after discharge.

Primary Practice Setting: Three hospitals in a large regional hospital system in the southeastern United States.

Methodology And Sample: Retrospective, secondary quantitative analysis of 13,361 patient records (mean age 58.

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The aim of this paper was to use the Walker and Avant method of concept analysis to evaluate the concept of instrumental support in the context of hospital to home care transitions. Findings from this concept analysis suggest three defining attributes of instrumental support: informal support providers, tangible support, and unmet personal needs. Antecedents identified: a strong and supportive social network, an independently functioning adult, an illness resulting in hospitalization, a change in functional status, and the patient being discharged home from the hospital.

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Aims And Objectives: To review and synthesise the current literature on social support and hospital readmission rates.

Background: Hospital readmission rates have not declined significantly since 2010 despite efforts to identify and implement strategies to reduce readmissions. After discharge, patients often report the need for help at home with personal care, medical care and/or transportation.

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Objective: Several studies of nurse staffing and patient outcomes found a curvilinear or U-shaped relationship, with benefits from additional nurse staffing diminishing or reversing at high staffing levels. This study examined potential diminishing returns to nurse staffing and the existence of a "tipping point" or the level of staffing after which higher nurse staffing no longer improves and may worsen readmissions.

Data Sources/study Setting: The Readiness Evaluation And Discharge Interventions (READI) study database of over 130,000 adult (18+) inpatient discharges from 62 medical, surgical, and medical-surgical (noncritical care) units from 31 United States (US) hospitals during October 2014-March 2017.

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Background: Nursing leadership turnover can adversely affect nurse retention and thus quality of care. Little research has examined the way nurses at differing levels of leadership experience their workplace and voluntarily decide to leave.

Purpose: Our study sought to explore and compare intent to leave and turnover experiences of acute care nurse managers, directors, and executives.

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Background: Home health care, a commonly used bridge strategy for transitioning from hospital to home-based care, is expected to contribute to readmission avoidance efforts. However, in studies using disease-specific samples, evidence about the effectiveness of home health care in reducing readmissions is mixed.

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of home health care in reducing return to hospital across a diverse sample of patients discharged home following acute care hospitalization.

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Background And Purpose: Turnover among nurse managers, directors, and executives is associated with staff nurse retention and patient outcomes. The purpose of this article is to describe the development of an instrument to evaluate factors associated with intent to leave among these leaders within acute care facilities.

Methods: The Nurse Leader Environment Support Survey (NLESS) was developed and evaluated using exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing (Cronbach's α).

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Aim: To describe clinical nurses' experiences with practice change associated with participation in a multi-site nursing translational research study implementing new protocols for hospital discharge readiness assessment.

Background: Nurses' participation in translational research studies provides an opportunity to evaluate how implementation of new nursing interventions affects care processes within a local context. These insights can provide information that leads to successful adoption and sustainability of the intervention.

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Background: The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) is a comprehensive guide for determining the factors that affect successful implementation of complex interventions embedded in real-time clinical practice.

Purpose: The study aim was to understand implementation constructs in a multi-site translational research study on readiness for hospital discharge that distinguished study sites with low versus high implementation fidelity.

Methods: In this descriptive study, site Principal Investigator interviews (from 8 highest and 8 lowest fidelity sites) were framed with questions from 20 relevant CFIR constructs.

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Background: Promoting continuity of nurse assignment during discharge care has the potential to increase patient readiness for discharge-which has been associated with fewer readmissions and emergency department visits. The few studies that examined nurse continuity during acute care hospitalizations did not focus on discharge or postdischarge outcomes.

Objectives: The aim of this research was to examine the association of continuity in nurse assignment to patients prior to hospital discharge with return to hospital (readmission and emergency department or observation visits), including exploration of the mediating pathway through patient readiness for discharge and moderating effects of unit environment and unit nurse characteristics.

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Objective: Applied to value-based health care, the economic term "individual productivity" refers to the quality of an outcome attributable through a care process to an individual clinician. This study aimed to (1) estimate and describe the discharge preparation productivities of individual acute care nurses and (2) examine the association between the discharge preparation productivity of the discharging nurse and the patient's likelihood of a 30-day return to hospital [readmission and emergency department (ED) visits].

Research Design: Secondary analysis of patient-nurse data from a cluster-randomized multisite study of patient discharge readiness and readmission.

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Infusion-associated medication errors have the potential to cause the greatest patient harm. A 21-year review of errors and near-miss reports from a national medication error-reporting program found that infusion-associated medication errors resulted in the identification of numerous best practices that support patient safety. A content analysis revealed that most errors involved improper dosage, mistaken drug choice, knowledge-based mistakes, skill-based slips, and memory lapses.

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Retention of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) is an ongoing challenge for nursing homes. To combat the effects of providing complex care needs to residents, this quality improvement project explored a 90-minute evidence-based education program on compassion fatigue awareness and multiple self-care skill strategies for CNA retention. A single-group pre- and posttest design, mixed-methods approach.

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Introduction: The electronic health record (EHR) has created additional administrative burdens on providers to perform data entry while trying to engage with the patient during the health care visit. Providers have become frustrated and distracted with the documentation requirements which further hindered connectivity, and communication with the patient. The utilization of medical scribes in the outpatient clinical setting was a strategy shown to enhance patient and provider interaction, decrease clinician's administrative tasks, and promote satisfaction among providers and patients.

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Importance: The downward trend in readmissions has recently slowed. New enhancements to hospital readmission reduction efforts are needed. Structured assessment of patient readiness for discharge has been recommended as an addition to discharge preparation standards of care to assist with tailoring of risk-mitigating actions.

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For quality measures, confusion and discontentment have increased, as availability of electronic data and data collection tools has expanded. We examined current issues with quality measures across 4 stakeholder groups: developers, regulators/endorsers, data collectors, and consumer advocates. There are missing quality measures, issues with data quality and purpose, questionable usability of electronic health records, and an increased measurement burden and cost.

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This study evaluated the potential impact of an online spiritual care educational program on pediatric nurses' attitudes toward and knowledge of spiritual care and their competence to provide spiritual care to children with cancer at the end of life. It was hypothesized that the intervention would increase nurses' positive attitudes toward and knowledge of spiritual care and increase nurses' level of perceived spiritual care competence. A positive correlation was expected between change in nurses' perceived attitudes toward and knowledge of spiritual care and change in nurses' perceived spiritual care competence.

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There has been a proliferation of initiatives to improve discharge processes and outcomes for the transition from hospital to home and community-based care. Operationalization of these processes has varied widely as hospitals have customized discharge care into innovative roles and functions. This article presents a model for conceptualizing the components of hospital discharge preparation to ensure attention to the full range of processes needed for a comprehensive strategy for hospital discharge.

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