Obesity education for nurse practitioners: perspectives from nurse practitioner faculty.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate curriculum content and teaching practices about obesity in graduate nursing programs in the United States.

Methodology: A survey of 1202 faculty members teaching in nurse practitioner (NP) programs was conducted using an investigator-created instrument with items based on the National Institutes of Health Obesity Education Initiative guidelines. Objective items were analyzed using descriptive and nonparametric statistics, and the open-ended questions were analyzed using content analysis.

Returning enlisted veterans-upward (to) professional nursing: not all innovative ideas succeed.

Military licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) provide nursing care for the ill, injured, convalescent, or disabled persons. Those who have deployed both for humanitarian and wartime situations have a tremendous experiential base in stabilization of life-threatening frontline injuries and critical care intense facilities. An educational program was created called Returning Enlisted Veterans-Upward (to) Professional Nursing for retired/discharged U.

Health information technology and nursing.

Health information technology (HIT) is a central aspect of current U.S. government efforts to reduce costs and improve the efficiency and safety of the health care system.

Building academic capacity through statewide partnerships.

In 2008, Texas was challenged by the Center to Champion Nursing in America, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and AARP, to join a nationwide campaign for action to increase nursing education capacity. This article describes how one state created academic partnerships to achieve capacity building and strengthened relationships and commitments to invest in nursing education. Three year outcomes include a) the creation of a statewide team to address nursing education capacity, b) progress toward doubling the number of nursing graduates from the state's schools of nursing, c) strengthening and emphasizing retention efforts across the state, d) regionalization, including implementation of a $1 million grant and e) transitioning the statewide team to a broader focus and commitment to the Initiative on the Future of Nursing via the formation of a Regional Action Coalition.

Validating graduate student programmatic outcomes.

One area of paramount importance for a school of nursing's accreditation process is the evaluation of competencies and/or outcomes for the program. Each course within a program is expected to bring the students to the point of comprehending the selected programmatic outcomes while determining an improvement in the mastery of the designated competencies. Schools of nursing have used capstone courses to provide an avenue for the documentation of the synthesis and acquisition of material addressed by programmatic outcomes.

Experiences with electronic health records: early adopters in long-term care facilities.

Background: : Electronic health records (EHRs) are becoming a required technology across the health care sector. Long-term care (LTC) facilities have lagged other settings in adopting health information technologies but represent an area where significant care coordination benefits might be realized. Nevertheless, managers face many of the same challenges implementing EHRs that exist in other environments when implementing enterprise-wide systems.

Cushioning, weathering, place, and community in rural grandmother-mothering.

Place influences rural women's health when distance and lack of anonymity contribute to a reluctance to seek care. A qualitative design was used to explore relationships between place and the health of rural grandmothers raising grandchildren. The study generated findings concerning theory related to perceptual experience of rurality, identifying "Cushioning," as a basic social concept and "Weathering," "Paradoxical Place," and "Community Mothering" as subconcepts.

Perioperative pharmacology: pharmacotherapeutics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics.

Results of current research into perioperative medication errors have revealed that more than half of medication errors occur during the administration phase of the medication-use process. The administration phase is the point at which the medication and the patient intersect and the medication imposes its pharmacological effect. During this phase, the only safety net between the patient and the medication is the health care provider's attention and care when administering the medication.

Preparing underemployed Latino U.S. nurses through the Mexico NCLEX-RN Success Program.

The critical nursing shortage in U.S. communities along the United States-Mexico border is compounded by the need for nurses who are linguistically and culturally concordant with the growing number of Latinos in these communities.

Introducing nursing students to pediatric end-of-life issues using simulation.

This article describes the first pediatric death experienced by a 20-year-old nurse. This was a disturbing experience that led to the development of strategies as a faculty member to use when teaching nursing students about pediatric end-of-life issues using simulation. This article describes those strategies.

State of the science: beta-blockers and reduction of perioperative cardiac events.

This article evaluates the current literature concerning the use of perioperative beta-blockade to reduce cardiac events in hopes that it may provide direction to clinicians or demonstrate gaps in medical knowledge, thus revealing areas suitable for future study. The current standard of practice for the use of perioperative beta-blockade in preoperative patients is outlined in the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines. Findings differ as to the risk and benefit of using beta-blockers perioperatively to reduce cardiac events.

Medication errors from an emergency room setting: safety solutions for nurses.

Medication errors represent a failure in the medication use process and can increase morbidity and mortality. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention maintains a taxonomy that assists in standardized reporting, evaluating, and trending of medication error data. Many emergency departments are overcrowded from the increased responsibility of providing emergency and nonurgent medical care.

State policy and research initiatives focused on improving nursing workforce: an integrative literature review.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine to and synthesize nursing workforce research and policy initiatives at the state level. An integrative literature review was systematically conducted using Ganong's Stages of an Integrative Research Review (1987). Searches were limited to English-language publications in the years from 2000 to 2010 which focused on workforce issues in the United States.

Body piercing: more than skin deep.

Young adult populations (18-25 years of age) throughout the world have latched onto the mainstream trend of body piercing. Best health care practices for these individuals involves the knowledge of proper procedural techniques, postsite care, common complications, and treatment modalities.

Fellowship in the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

The purpose of this column is to describe the process of application and selection for fellowship in the Fellows of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP). Fellows are invited and selected based on their accomplishments in four priority areas: research, practice, education, and policy. Based on the 10-year history of the FAANP, current members provide guidance for potential applicants on the steps necessary for making a successful application.

Filling gaps in knowledge: educating nurses to provide appropriate patient materials.

Assessing and addressing health literacy is a key issue in providing quality patient education. Often, nurses do not know how to do this. Continuing nursing education provides a venue for filling this gap in knowledge, contributing to better and safer patient care.