Welcome
to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 285 27 January 2016
From NZ media this week
Wellington Hospital maternity ward cuts bad for
mothers, say midwives
New
mothers are being sent home early, as Wellington Hospital shuts down half its
postnatal beds to save costs, midwives say.
Elsevier launches ClinicalKey search engine for
nurses
Medical and scientific publisher Elsevier has
launched ClinicalKey for Nursing, a clinical search engine built on the same
platform as its current ClinicalKey product but designed to best suit the
search behaviours and content preferences of nurses.
Health spending gap widens as city grows
The amount of money being spent on health care
for Auckland is dropping as the population grows and the problem is getting
worse.
DHBs and PHOs
General practices in Nelson get on board with
patient portals
More people in Nelson are
accessing their medical information online. .
More than half of the
general practices in the Nelson Bays area now offer "patient
portals", which allow patients to interact with their general practice and
view their health information through a secure website.
Drugs, alcohol, smoking, addictions
More people seeking help from gambling
addiction services in Christchurch
Lonely rebuild workers,
residents suffering post-quake stress and families struggling with Christmas
bills are contributing to a spike in people seeking help for gambling
addictions this summer.
The Problem Gambling
Foundation has seen a 55 per cent increase in the number of gambling addicts,
or their families, seeking help in Christchurch in the last six weeks.
Editorial: Time to address our binge culture –
it's last man standing, not first man falling
OPINION: Got
any 4 to 5 per cent alcohol beers in your fridge? Check those oh-so-clever
blurbs they're all doing on the side these days. It probably says something
about being "sessionable".
Ethical issues
Euthanasia debate: What you need to know
Euthanasia
is an incredibly complicated issue, both morally and legally. This Q+A answers
some common questions about the topic as part of a Stuff series on voluntary
euthanasia.
Euthanasia debate: How you can engage
As
part of Stuff's series on assisted dying, we explain the process of the Heath
Select Committee's investigation.
Every
man and his dog has an opinion on assisted death, but the process of making a
public submission can appear daunting.
Euthanasia debate: The international context
As
part of Stuff's series on assisted death, we take a look at what's legal in
other countries.
New
Zealand is still debating the issue, but other countries have been permitting
assisted death and euthanasia for decades.
As
well as canvassing public opinion, New Zealand's parliamentary inquiry will
look at international cases before making a decision on whether a law change is
needed in New Zealand. ACT leader David Seymour's bill calling to legalise
voluntary euthanasia is relatively modest: more like Oregon, less like Belgium.
Euthanasia debate: Jayne Malcolm's story, the
flip side of assisted death
Lecretia
Seales and Jayne Malcolm had much in common, but were on different sides of the
euthanasia debate. Jayne's parents share their story as part of a Stuff series
on voluntary euthanasia. Katie Kenny reports.
Lecretia
Seales and Jayne Malcolm had much in common. They were Wellington-based lawyers
diagnosed with brain tumours. They had wide smiles and dark wavy hair. They
died at 42 years of age.
Mental health
Attempted suicides highest in Canterbury, twice
as much as Auckland
Canterbury
police responded to more than 2800 attempted suicides last year, up
significantly on previous years and well above other regions.
Patient safety
Woman paid out for terrible internal burns
error
A Wellington woman who received third-degree
burns after a horrific medical blunder has been paid $5000.
Pharmacy
Pharmac to hear Palmerston North terminal
nurse's case
In
the hopes of having a potentially life-extending drug funded, a Palmerston
North nurse suffering from an aggressive brain tumour is preparing to present
her case to New Zealand's pharmaceutical agency.
Public health
New Zealand's worst regions for STIs
It's
a regional title nobody wants.
Lakes
District Health Board - which encompasses Rotorua, Taupo and surrounding areas
- has the highest rate of chlamydia of any DHB in New Zealand.
NZ could get rid of HIV - Aids Foundation
New HIV infections in New
Zealand could be eliminated within 10 years, the AIDS Foundation says.
It is calling for the
government to fund new prevention tools that could halt the epidemic.
Concern at lack of zika risk updates
The risk of the zika virus in the Pacific
appears to be growing but there has been no official warning from government
departments.
Zika virus alert reaches Samoa
Health authorities have added eight tropical
destinations, including Samoa, to a travel alert about an illness linked with a
severe birth defect and spread by mosquitoes.
Pregnant women warned not to travel to Rio
Olympics
Pregnant women are being warned not to travel
to the Olympics in Brazil after a virus causing thousands of babies to be born
with unusually small heads swept through the region.
From International media this week
EU nurses face English language checks
Nurses and midwives coming to Britain from the
EU will now need to prove they are fluent in English, under new rules.
B.C. to hire more than 1,600 nurses by the end
of March
B.C. government is going ahead with the
plan to hire more than 1,600 nurses by the end of March, a promise
officials made three years ago.
Fewer than one in five nurses comply with
guidelines for standard precautions
Only 17.4 percent of ambulatory care nurses
reported compliance in all nine standard precautions for infection prevention,
according to a study published in the January issue of the American
Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association
for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
How 5 health systems are recruiting, retaining nurses during an RN
shortage
Hospitals and
health systems are using a myriad of recruitment and retention techniques as
they brace for a nursing shortage — from bonuses and tuition reimbursement to
career development opportunities and partnerships with educational
institutions.
A nursing
shortage is expected nationwide as baby boomers age and the need for healthcare
grows.
Blog Series Examines Factors Contributing to Nursing Shortage and
Details Forces at Play in Today's Job Market
- Nursing
Shortage Blog Series Helps Nurses Understand the Important Role that Education
and Experience Play -
England’s A&E crisis is fuelled by inequality
The poorest fifth of people in
England not only have a lower life expectancy than the wealthiest fifth, they
are also more likely to spend more years in ill health than the better-off fifth. Because
their health is worse, the less well-off also make more use of NHS services –
especially emergency services. This little acknowledged fact is fuelling the A&E crisis in England.
But many emergency admissions
to hospital could be prevented if people had better access to GPs, nurses,
hospital specialists and other healthcare professionals, especially for chronic
conditions such as dementia, diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases
Magnet-recognized hospitals for nursing have
better surgical outcomes
Patients undergoing surgery at hospitals
Magnet-recognized for nursing excellence are more likely to have better
outcomes at lower costs, according to research from the Philadelphia-based
University of Pennsylvania, published in JAMA Surgery.
Screening gets top marks for picking up bowel
cancer early
Bowel cancer is more likely to be diagnosed at the earliest stage
if it is picked up by screening, according to new figures.
Nurses, doctors pair up in education program
The University of Virginia’s Darden School of
Business and School of Nursing are uniting for a unique partnership to train
physician-nurse pairs together for the first time.
Work and management
An alternative approach to nurse manager
leadership
Described as one of the most demanding work environments
across multiple industries, the nurse practice environment is inundated with
concerns over health and safety issues, including job-related injuries and
stress, physical assaults, threats, and verbal abuse.1-3 Strong nursing leadership is needed to
create practice environments and work climates that are healthier and safer for
both nurses and patients.4,5Nurse managers are recognized as leaders who have
the ability to create practice environments that influence the quality of
patient care, nurse job satisfaction levels, and the achievement of performance
goals.6
Defusing an Emotionally Charged Conversation
with a Colleague
Work with anyone long enough and you’re bound to encounter a
difference of opinion. Most of the time, these disagreements are resolved
amicably. But if you’re like most people, every now and then you find yourself
immersed in a conversation so emotionally charged it seems to have nothing to
do with the issues you’re supposedly discussing.
How to Deal with a Passive-Aggressive Colleague
Your colleague says one thing in a meeting but then does
another. He passes you in the hallway without saying hello and talks over you
in meetings. But when you ask to speak with him about it, he insists that
everything’s fine and the problem is all in your head. Argh! It’s so
frustrating to work with someone who is acting passive-aggressively. Do you
address the behavior directly? Or try to ignore it? How can you get to the core
issue when your colleague pretends that nothing’s going on?
Articles of interest
Delphi: From Mythology to Research
This month’s interprofessional continuing education (CE)
article is a powerful example of medical decision making, using a diversity of
cognitive and affective domains to reach consensus; in this particular case, a
qualitative research methodology is used—the Delphi methodology. The authors’
state, “This article presents the findings of a 3-phase ‘Delphi process’
involving a group of ‘international wound care experts’ conducted by the
International Skin Tear Advisory Panel to establish a consensus on the product
selection guide for the management of skin tears.” In their article, the
authors describe the Delphi methodology as both a technique and a method.
Although the initial use of the Delphi methodology was for consensus building,
the model is now increasingly used in participatory action research, along with
others, including the nominal group and stakeholder consultation.1 Given the emphasis on authors and editors in
biomedical journals to explain and become more transparent about the
methodology and reproducibility of a given article,2 I will attempt to illuminate the Delphi
research method as a complementary piece to this month’s CE.
Empathy in Nursing Leadership
Being
an empathetic leader allows you to understand and respond to the needs of the
people you are charged with leading. An inspirational leader will use empathy
to understand what support and direction their team members need in order to
achieve. Empathy builds rapport.
Research
article
Sufficient competence in community elderly
care? Results from a competence measurement of nursing staff
Bing-Jonsson
P, Hofoss D, Kirkevold M, Bjørk I, Foss C
BMC
Nursing 2016, 15 :5 (14 January 2016)
Multi-morbidity, poly-pharmacy and cognitive
impairment leave many old patients in a frail condition with a high risk of
adverse outcomes if proper health care is not provided. Knowledge about
available competence is necessary to evaluate whether we are able to offer
equitable and balanced health care to older persons with acute and/or complex
health care needs. This study investigates the sufficiency of nursing staff
competence in Norwegian community elderly care.
Online resources
Zika
Zika
is an arbovirus infection transmitted by several different species of Aedes
mosquitoes, including Aedes aegypti in the New World. Towards the end of 2015,
the Pan American Health Organization announced a possible link between
zika and congenital birth defects, in particularly a neurodevastating
birth defect known as microcephaly. The causal link between zika and
microcephaly has still not been confirmed, but preliminary evidence for an
association has been found. The impact of zika virus should be treated with the
utmost seriousness as the effects could be devastating. In response a call for research on
the outbreak and a new PLOS Collection, which will collate research and other
resources related to the outbreak, have been launched.
The above information has been collated for the
College of Nurses Aotearoa (NZ) Inc by Linda Stopforth, SNIPS and is provided
on a weekly basis. It is current as at Tuesday
26 January 2016.
If you have any feedback about content - what parts
are most useful or what you would like added - please email admin@nurse.org.nz
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