Kawasaki disease: a prospective population survey in the UK and Ireland from 2013 to 2015.

Objective: Kawasaki disease (KD) is an increasingly common vasculitis with risk of coronary artery aneurysms (CAAs). The last UK survey was in 1990, whereas current epidemiology, treatment patterns and complication rates are unknown. The aim of this study was to address this knowledge gap.

Supervised practice: a midwife's reflective journey.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2007) defines supervised practice as a structured and formal programme, devised to provide a midwife whose practice falls short of the required professional standards, with learning opportunities to enrich his/her clinical experience and improve practice. The primary aim is to ensure that the period of development agreed by the Local Supervising Authority Midwifery Officer (LSAMO) in supporting the midwife to improve their knowledge and skills, is subject to scrutiny through assessment, evaluation and reflection. The importance of reflective learning in midwifery practice is well recognised.

Oregon nurse staffing law: is it working?

In 2001, Oregon enacted a law mandating the creation of hospital nurse staffing committees to oversee staffing in acute care hospitals. The study design is a descriptive case study (qualitative method) using semistructured interviews and focus groups to assess the law requiring hospital nurse staffing committees to monitor nurse staffing in Oregon. One significant theme of the study was the wide variation among facilities in the way the staffing legislation is viewed, interpreted, understood, appreciated, and implemented.

What do parents and carers think about routine outcome measures and their use? A focus group study of CAMHS attenders.

Currently service user involvement in routine outcomes monitoring has been minimal, particularly in Children's services. There needs to be a more sustained effort to involve service users because of the valuable information that they could provide for service development and improvement. Focus groups were conducted with service users, including parents, carers and young people from a London CAMHS.

Developing clinical nurse specialist practice competencies.

Background: In 1998, the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialist (NACNS) developed the first ever core competencies for clinical nurse specialist (CNS) practice.

Purpose: This article describes the method used to develop, validate, and revise CNS core practice competencies.

Methods: The stepwise method of identifying core CNS competencies included content analysis of CNS position/job descriptions, extensive literature review, development by role experts, first-tier corroboration, second-tier corroboration encompassing stakeholder review, final review/editing, approval by the board of directors, and dissemination.

A challenge to meet the future: nursing education in Oregon, 2010.

Nursing leadership in Oregon has united behind a plan to address the nursing shortage, setting forth five strategic goals. Two of these are specific to nursing education--to double enrollment by 2004 and redesign nursing education to more directly meet the changing health care needs of Oregonians. This article describes the Oregon Nursing Leadership Council plan and the processes used to develop it.