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New LPN Licensure Renewal Process Renewal notices will be mailed the week of April 14, 2008 to all LPN’s with current licenses expiring 8/31/2008. We are encouraging licensees to take advantage of the convenience of renewing their license online. The renewal notice will include your User ID and Password with instructions on how to renew your license online. Once your online renewal is complete, you will receive an immediate online receipt and email verification of your renewal.
CherokeeInspired Comfort Award Surprise a friend or co-worker for their exceptional service, sacrifice or innovation. Nominate them for the 2008 Cherokee Inspired Comfort Award. Fantastic prizes are also available for the nominators! Nomination Categories: 1. LPNs/LVNs 2. RNs 3. Advanced Practice Nurses 4. Student Nurses 5. Other Healthcare Professionals
Prizes in each category include:
Deadline: May 31, 2008 - Make Your Nomination Online Now! or pick up a nomination form from your Cherokee Uniforms retailer.
Nursing Survey Now Available It’s Boom Time for Nursing By Mary Nash, Chief Nursing Officer, Ohio State University Medical Center At no other time in history has nursing provided such incredible opportunity for job growth and job security. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. The increase in outpatient procedures, escalating regulation and rise of managed care providers have created a seemingly endless list of roles vital to managing the healthcare system, many of which can only be filled by experienced nurses. The rise in popularity of outpatient surgery in particular has had a significant impact on the nursing profession at both the ambulatory care facility and hospital levels. When I started in nursing just 30 years ago, outpatient procedures were relatively rare. Now commonplace, they are used for procedures from arthroscopic knee surgery to cancer biopsies and even hysterectomies. According to eMedicineHealth.com, more than 60 percent of elective surgery procedures in the United States are currently performed as outpatient surgeries. Health experts expect this will increase to nearly 75 percent over the next decade. The rise in outpatient procedures continues to create an enormous demand for nurses, and a windfall of opportunity for the nursing profession. Nurses educated on and experienced in operating rooms, biopsies, anesthesia, chemotherapy and radiology, among many other specialties, are in high demand at ambulatory care facilities. The impact on hospitals has also been significant. While it is true that there are more nurses working than ever before, there are actually fewer nurses acting as hospital bedside nurses, despite the fact that they continue to be in great demand. Because so many procedures are now done on an outpatient basis, those patients that are admitted to hospitals are either having more invasive procedures or they are very sick with complex illnesses. For these patients there is no substitute for a skilled and compassionate nurse. Emergency rooms and emergency care facilities in particular, often the only option for people who are injured or become sick after 5 p.m., are busting at the seams and in dire need of nurses who are quick thinkers and who thrive on a fast-paced environment. New opportunities As the medical profession expands and becomes more specialized, exciting opportunities have arisen beyond the bedside; opportunities that may even surprise established nurses. Tech-savvy nurses who know their way around the computer are in high demand with software development companies and hospital information services departments that design and implement software programs to manage patient data. Medical equipment and pharmaceutical sales are booming, and companies are looking for experienced nurses to become salespeople. Nurses provide an advantage over other salespeople because they can not only relate to the doctors and facilities to which they sell, but they also have the medical knowledge to understand and explain the advantages of a certain model of hospital bed, IV pump or pain medication. Universities also present tremendous opportunities for growth beyond the bedside. A shortage of faculty members to teach high-demand nursing courses is resulting in a great need for experienced nurses who can teach. Hospitals are hiring nurses to become case workers, who act as the liaison to managed care providers, explaining why a patient is receiving care, obtaining approvals for longer stays, managing records and helping arrange any necessary post-release special services, such as physical therapy. Other opportunities include new, advanced roles as clinical nurse specialists, nurse midwives, nurse practitioners, home healthcare providers and hospice nurses for terminal and chronic diseases. Nurses are even going back to school to earn MBAs and enter into nurse management. But before you hand in your notice to pursue one of these exciting opportunities, be sure you have first mastered nursing itself. Potential employers want to know you have a deep understanding of nursing, of the medical profession, of how the healthcare system works, of the various roles that each position plays in medical field – lessons you can only learn through experience. Education Opens Doors Hospitals, particularly academic medical centers, continue to provide the most fertile learning grounds for becoming an experienced and skilled nurse. Hospitals affiliated with a university, such as the Ohio State University Medical Center, provide an incredibly challenging and stimulating learning experience by exposing nurses to some of the brightest minds, newest ways of thinking and most cutting edge technologies and techniques in the field. They also offer excellent benefits to continuing your education to expand your options in nursing. So if you are still in college, apply for an externship to earn credit while you gain valuable experience. If you are fresh out of school, try to get into an internship or residency program that will start you off on the right foot, especially at an academic medical center. If you are already a nurse, constantly seek out opportunities to further your education, regardless of your experience level. An additional certification or graduate degree can open many doors. Education is the key to opening these doors. You can’t have enough. The more knowledge you have, the more opportunities will be open to you. Article By: Mary Nash, Ph. D., R.N., is the Chief Nursing Officer for Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus. Dangerous Tubing Misconnections The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued a Sentinel Event Alert that urges health care organizations to pay special attention to how tubes and catheters are connected to patients and challenges the manufacturers of these devices to redesign them in ways that will make dangerous misconnections much less possible. Tubing and catheter misconnection errors occur frequently and lead to deadly consequences in many instances. Nurses need to take heightened vigilance and a systematic approach to avoiding misconnections.
Early Intervention
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