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Below are recent articles from
Colorado Nurse, the official publication of the Colorado Nurses Association.
In January my daughter, Dorothy Barrow, gave me an article to read about the National Nurse Honor Guard Coalition and told me that since I was 10+ years retired, I needed to start a chapter in the Denver metro area. After reading it I knew I had to start a group here.
Why are new HIV cases still occurring when we have preventive treatment? One reason could be a lack of knowledge and experience among healthcare professionals to discuss, prescribe, and manage PrEP for vulnerable patients. Lack of information and discomfort with prescribing PrEP remain ongoing issues among healthcare professionals in the United States. Healthcare professionals should know how to identify appropriate candidates for PrEP, provide general education, and prescribe necessary preventive treatment.
Empathy relies on understanding an experience from another’s perspective. A simulated learning activity such as wearing an ostomy bag for a day, in combination with reflective writing in preparation for debriefing, provides an opportunity for developing empathy, which is linked to improved patient experiences and outcomes.
Patients’ perceptions of their care may not correlate to the actual quality of care given but rather their beliefs about what they perceive as quality care. Nurse leaders must address the patient experience with approaches that impact multiple goals simultaneously. One such approach involves nurse leader rounds, or what we call “nurse leader rounds plus.” This underutilized initiative can improve the patient experience, enhance the culture of safety, and increase staff engagement.
Ongoing research shows a decline in new graduate nurses’ clinical judgment. Effective mentorship plays a crucial role in ensuring patient safety while new nurses develop clinical judgment skills. A mentor is an experienced nurse who maintains a long-term relationship with a new nurse via coaching and evaluation to assist in professional development. Mentoring promotes patient safety, and Tanner’s Clinical Judgment Model can serve as a framework for developing these vital skills.
