AACN CSI Academy Expands to Support Underserved Populations With Grant From Edwards Lifesciences Foundation

A $200,000 grants from Edwards Lifesciences Foundation will support the expansion of the AACN CSI Academy nurse leadership and innovation program to 10 cardiac surgery critical care and/or progressive care units that provide care to a significant proportion of patients from underserved populations, with an emphasis on Black communities.

New Version of AACN’s Critical Care Orientation Course Includes Stand-alone and Specialty-focused Options

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses has released the latest version of its Essentials of Critical Care Orientation online course. Since its initial launch in 2002, ECCO has been used at more than 1,100 hospitals and healthcare facilities as an integral part of their critical care orientation or to supplement classroom-based education.

Standardized Curriculum Introduces ICU Nurses to ECMO

Vanderbilt University Medical Center designed and rapidly deployed a curriculum specifically to equip nurses new to ECMO with the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to provide proficient and safe care for patients receiving ECMO. The pre-COVID ECMO training proved to be an effective, resource-efficient and pragmatic solution that can be used across different types of ICUs and across institutions.

‘With This Ring,’ Scientists Hope to Predict COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers

A three-pronged approach will help to predict COVID-19 infection in healthcare workers. At the center of it all – a ring, which tracks vitals such as heart rate and temperature and alerts the user that they might be getting sick without even realizing it. The study also will determine if participants go on to develop an acute COVID-19 infection and the prevalence rate in that population. Researchers hope to better identify patterns that could predict the emergence and recovery from novel infections to prevent and contain future pandemics.

Robbins Family Awards Honor Exemplary Service In Nursing at Memorial Sloan Kettering

As we celebrate National Nurses Week, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and The Robbins Family Foundation recognize seven distinguished nursing staff members for their exemplary service. Each member of this select group is being honored with the inaugural 2020 Robbins Family Award for Nursing Excellence.

Ultraviolet Light Exposes Contagion Spread from Improper PPE Use

Despite PPE use, reports show that many health care workers contracted COVID-19. A novel training technique reinforces the importance of using proper procedures to put on and take off PPE when caring for patients during the pandemic. Researchers vividly demonstrate how aerosol-generating procedures can lead to exposure of the contagion with improper PPE use. The most common error made by the health care workers was contaminating the face or forearms during PPE removal.

FAU Nurses Provide PPE for Homeless, Low Income Individuals During Pandemic

A team of FAU nurses is addressing the dire needs of a low income neighborhood in West Palm Beach by spearheading programs to provide lifesaving PPE such as face masks for those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. People living in poverty as well as homeless individuals and those struggling with social determinants of health are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and dying from it.

Hazardous Drug Spills Put Cancer Nurses at Risk

While lifesaving to cancer patients, chemotherapy drugs can be hazardous for the health care workers who handle them, especially during a spill.

Inconsistent use of personal protective equipment when cleaning up a spill and problems with closed-system transfer devices — which are designed to prevent the release of toxic vapors and liquids — topped issues uncovered by a new safety study involving nearly 400 nurses across 12 academic infusion centers.

Penn Nursing Offering New Telehealth Online Course Free to All Healthcare Providers

During these times of uncertainty, we’re all having to change what we do and how we do it—including health care providers who have had to swiftly migrate to telehealth to offer care that doesn’t require patients to travel and visit crowded facilities for treatment. To help meet this urgent need, Penn Nursing is offering its new online training in best practices for telehealth to all health care providers, free of charge, and each completed course provides 2 CEUs.

FAU Finds Simple Solution to Make Thousands of Face Shields for Baptist Health South Florida

A disposable face shield developed by FAU only requires clear polyester plastic, elastic fabric bands, and a laser cutter. Unlike 3D printed solutions, this process is simple and quick. FAU re-tooled their facilities to leverage the opportunity to make face shields much faster than are currently being manufactured. They plan to share the blueprint for this PPE broadly with other academic institutions as well as industry.

Penn Nursing Podcast Special Edition: COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic grows across the US, Penn Nursing’s Alison Buttenheim, PhD, a public health researcher and behavioral epidemiologist and Penn Medicine’s Carolyn Cannuscio, ScD, a social epidemiologist, join Amplify Nursing to discuss the coronavirus – what we need to know, what we need to do to help lessen the spread, and what we should expect in the days and weeks to come. Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Sustaining simulation education requires evidence of effectiveness

Simulation education has evolved significantly over the years and has become essential to preparing nurses for clinical practice, but sustaining its evolution will require greater evidence of its effectiveness, according to a summary of Columbia University School of Nursing’s 2018 inaugural “Innovations in Simulation Summit,” which appears in the October 2019 issue of Clinical Simulation in Nursing.

Beth King

FAU Receives $1.5 Million to Train Veteran Nursing Students to Care for Other Veterans

Project Funded by HRSA will Serve Veterans in Rural, Underserved Communities Florida is home to approximately 1.5 million military veterans and has the third largest veteran population in the United States. Now, veterans will care for other veterans with a…