Welcome
to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 290 9 March 2016
From
NZ media this week
Government facing cost
error at Health Ministry, and payroll woes at Mbie
The
Government is facing dual crises in two of its biggest departments, with an
office a refurb and payroll issue both turning sour.
A
multimillion-dollar miscalculation on the $24 million refit of the
Health Ministry's head office in 2014 has bought a strong rebuke from
Treasury, accusing the ministry of "serious financial mismanagement"
Read more here
Health Ministry sought
to recoup costs of $18m bungle from DHB budgets
The
Ministry received approval for the $24 million refit in 2014 based on the 2012
business case, with the money agreed to come from the ministry's own cash
reserves.
Read more here
Cancer
Maori cancer treatment inequity a complex issue
Regaining trust in the health system and improving health
literacy is key to closing the disparity gap in cancer treatment for Maori,
according to a Palmerston North health promoter.
Read more here
NZ's cancer survival rates worse than Australia
New Zealand is lagging behind improvements being
made across the Tasman in cancer survival rates and researchers want greater
emphasis placed on early diagnosis.
Read more
Cancer primary care needs
improvement
New Zealand
needs to improve its early diagnosis of cancer and providing optimum treatment,
if we are to catch up with cancer care progress in Australia, according to new
research from the University of Auckland.
Read more here
Warning over cost of new cancer drugs
A leading New Zealand cancer researcher says
drug prices are reaching insane levels and it's time for new approaches to drug
discovery, development and funding.
Read more here
'Real, urgent' plight
for melanoma patients hoping for better Keytruda funding
The
Government needs to show in the May Budget it is committed to helping New
Zealanders with advanced melanoma, Dr FRANCIS HUNTER says.
Read more here
DHBs
and PHOs
DHBs look to increase Maori and Pacific workforce
Three Auckland district health boards and the
Health Ministry are digging deep to boost Maori and Pacific representation in
the health workforce.
Read more here
$4m laundry bill
'excessive'
The government agency charged with finding
savings for district health boards has been accused of wasting $4 million on a
business case for laundry services.
Read more here
Who is missing out on
surgery? Government releases first figures of 'phantom waiting list'
More
than 5300 people missed out on the surgery they needed, within a three month
period last year, because there wasn't enough resources to do it.
It's
the first release of Government figures measuring the surgical need that
was going unmet, by hospitals stretched to capacity and struggling to keep
up.
Read more here
Emergency
medicine
Emergency Departments
around New Zealand under enormous strain as sicknesses rise
With more
than a million visits to an emergency department last
year, there are more sick and injured Kiwis than ever. Ben Heather
reports.
It
was a Sunday, February 28, and Wellington Hospital's emergency department had
never been busier.
Read more here
'Lock-out' laws would stem violence in emergency
departments, says doctor
"Terrible" alcohol-fuelled violence
that requires police dogs and Tasers to deal with is an example of why stricter
booze controls are needed, the director of Waikato Hospital's emergency
department says.
Read more here
Violent drunks continue to
put pressure on hospitals
New research about the impact of
alcohol-affected patients on hospital emergency departments shows the problem
of violent drunk people is no better than it was last year.
Read more here
Public
health
Rheumatic fever rates
nearly halve in four years
Cases
of rheumatic fever have almost halved, four years after a nationwide programme
to prevent the third-world disease began.
Read more here
Zika
Possible case of
sexual transmission of Zika virus
Investigations
are underway into a possible case of sexual transmission of Zika virus in New
Zealand.
A
man became ill after visiting a country where Zika virus is currently being
actively transmitted, and has tested positive for the virus. His female
partner, who has not recently travelled to a Zika-affected country, has also
tested positive for Zika.
Read more here
From International media this week
Comparing COPD outcomes for patients treated by
NPs/PAs versus physicians
For patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder
(COPD) who have been previously hospitalized, the rates of rehospitalization or
readmission for COPD do not differ between patients treated by physicians or
those treated by nurse practitioners/physician assistants, according to a study
published in PLoS ONE.
Read more here
Policy Engagement: A Call for All Nurses
The need for nurses to become familiar with and engaged in
the policy-making process has never been greater. While nurse leaders
throughout time have emphasized the need for nurses to become more involved in
advocating for patients and the profession, the passage of the Affordable Care
Act (ACA) and the release of the Institute of Medicine’s The Future of Nursing report both call for
the transformation of health care delivery and underscore opportunities for
policy engagement.
Read more here
Nurse staffing levels key to keeping
rehospitalizations down for hip/knee surgery patients
The
cross-sectional study analyzed data from 112,000 Medicare patients in nearly
500 US hospitals
Read more here
Inspiring collaborative nurses starts with collaborative
education
In 2010, the Institute of
Medicine released a trailblazing report calling
for 80 percent of the nursing workforce to be BSN-educated by 2020. The
ambitious goal was grounded in evidence that higher education equips nurses to
be more effective caregivers and navigators in the increasingly complex
healthcare system, according to an article from American Nurse Today
Read more here
Health and wellness
Depression in Nurses: The Unspoken Epidemic
Tears build behind your eyes. Your mind plays
over and over how much you want to turn and run, but you can’t. No matter what,
you have to keep going because you are strong and people are relying on you.
How can you endure it, though, when one part of you wants to scream and one
part of you wants to break down and sob? You can do neither, and instead, you
hold yourself as taut as a wire over the Grand Canyon.
Read item here
New
publications
Available
as a pdf download
Assessing
Progress on the Institute of Medicine Report The Future of Nursing (2016)
Nurses
make up the largest segment of the health care profession, with 3 million
registered nurses in the United States. Nurses work in a wide variety of
settings, including hospitals, public health centers, schools, and homes, and
provide a continuum of services, including direct patient care, health
promotion, patient education, and coordination of care. They serve in
leadership roles, are researchers, and work to improve health care policy. As
the health care system undergoes transformation due in part to the Affordable
Care Act (ACA), the nursing profession is making a wide-reaching impact by
providing and affecting quality, patient-centered, accessible, and affordable
care.
Read more here
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
8 March February 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
For more up
to date news and information follow SNIPS at:
Facebook: Snips Info
twitter: @SnipsInfo
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