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Day in the Life of a Nurse scheduled for November 13, 2015

Approximately 1,500 students from 54 schools will visit 53 hospitals and schools of nursing on the 13th of November for Day in the Life of a Nurse.  2015 will mark the sixteenth continuous year that the Nursing Consortium of South Florida organizes Day in the Life of a Nurse. Participation this year has increased by 50% thanks to more hospitals and nursing schools agreeing to participate.  "One Profession, Many Careers" is the program theme for 2015 as we look forward to impress on area youth the growing number of career options for nurses and the unique opportunities that nurses have over other professionals in achieving work-life balance. The Nursing Consortium of South Florida has a media release calling public attention to this program which will be taking place in hospitals and schools of nursing from Tavernier to Fort Pierce this year.
 
2nd Nursing Leadership Development Conference at Sea set for April 2016
 
The Consortium’s second Sea-E-You™ conference,Awakening the Leader Within – Empowering Nurses across the Career Spectrum, will be held aboard the Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas April 14-18, 2016. This unique 10 contact hours leadership development program will feature six co-facilitated educational seminars and four facilitated roundtable discussions in a unique setting to enhance the opportunity of nurses at all levels to formally and informally engage senior nurse leaders and aspiring nurse leaders while enjoying the four-night weekend cruise aboard a five star cruise ship. For seminar topics, the program agenda, and faculty, please click here. For additional information, including super early-bird pricing and cabin rates please click here or call 800-422-0711.  There are a limited number of sponsor opportunities available.
 
Report presents framework to promote evidence-based psychosocial interventions
 
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine presents a framework for bringing evidence-based psychosocial interventions into clinical practice to improve outcomes for people with mental health and substance use disorders. Among other actions, the report recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services adopt the framework to promote the use of evidence-based interventions and the development of measures to assess the quality of care for these disorders. “While the evidence base for the effectiveness of interventions to treat these disorders is sizable, a considerable gap exists between what is known to be effective and interventions that are actually delivered in clinical care,” the report states. “Addressing this quality chasm in mental health and substance use care is particularly critical given the recent passage of the [Affordable Care Act] and Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which are changing the delivery of care and access to treatments for mental health and substance use disorders.”
 
PCORI awards more than $100 million for research studies
 
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute this week approved $83 million in funding for 26 research studies on a range of conditions and patient populations. Two of the awards totaling $29.5 million will support studies on caring for people infected with hepatitis C. Other studies will focus on comparing treatments for urea cycle disorders, genetic disorders caused by the liver’s inability to break down ammonia; non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, a rare lung disease; and syringomyelia, a debilitating neurological condition. In a separate announcement, the institute approved $23.5 million for two studies on efforts to reduce health disparities related to uncontrolled high blood pressure among African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, and low-income and rural individuals. PCORI said it plans to issue new funding announcements this fall on treatment of people with multiple sclerosis and long-term opioid treatment for chronic pain.
 
NAM program to focus on evidence-based solutions to promote ‘culture of health’ 
 
A new National Academy of Medicine program will review the state of health disparities in the United States and identify examples of community-based solutions to address them. The study will begin later this year as part of the Culture of Health Program, which will focus on identifying conditions and solutions to achieve equitable good health and well-being for all, supported by a $10 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “All Americans deserve an equal opportunity to achieve good health, but too often, the circumstances under which they are born, live, work, and age can get in the way,” said NAM President Victor Dzau. “Through this generous grant, we are excited about working with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop evidence-based solutions toward creating a shared culture of health that gives each of us access to quality care, nutrition, fitness and the other fundamentals needed for healthy, productive lives.” 

Consortium February conference to focus on Technology & Nursing

The Nursing Consortium of South Florida's next education conference will take place at the Signature Grand on February 26, 2016 and will have Technology & Nursing: Enhancing High Touch through High Tech as its theme.  Make plans to join us as we focus on how technology is changing nursing and how nursing is leveraging and shaping technology.  Abstracts are now being accepted for poster presentations on successful initiatives that utilize technology to improve patient care and nursing student education.  Please click here for information on the limited number of program sponsorship opportunities and exhibitor tables available for this one-day conference.  The last three Consortium conferences sold-out in advance.  Don’t just save the date,register today and save!
 
AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize applications due Oct. 11
 
Oct. 11 is the deadline to apply for the 2016 AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize. The award recognizes hospitals that have committed to achieving the Institute of Medicine’s six quality aims, are improving the health status of their communities and provide replicable models for the hospital field. For more information and an application, please click here.
 
NIOSH courses for first responders, nurses focus on strategies to reduce fatigue

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has released a free online course for emergency responders on strategies to reduce risks from fatigue during emergency response and recovery operations requiring long work shifts. The agency also released a course for nurses and nurse managers on strategies to reduce risks associated with shift work and long work hours.
 
CDC warns of antibiotic-resistant Enterobacteriaceae 

US health officials found active cases of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in all of the seven metropolitan areas they looked at, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. CRE infection is resistant to commonly used antibiotics and about 9% of infected patients died, the study found. CDC researcher Alexander Kallen said CRE is still relatively uncommon, and experts have an opportunity to address the issue before it becomes a serious threat. "It's much easier to control things and prevent the organism from becoming more common when it's rare." For additional information, please click here.
 
GAO issues interim report on Hospital VBP Program impact on payments, quality
 
Hospitals’ performance on most quality measures was improving before the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program began in October 2012 and did not noticeably change during the first two years of the VBP Program, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office to Congressional Committees. “While the HVBP program aims to provide an incentive to improve hospitals’ quality of care, preliminary analysis of information from 2013 and 2014…shows that it did not noticeably alter the existing trends in hospitals’ performance on any of the quality measures used to determine HVBP payment adjustments that we examined,” GAO said. Most of the roughly 3,000 inpatient prospective payment system hospitals eligible for the VBP program received a bonus or penalty of less than 0.5% of applicable Medicare payments in each of the first three years of the program, GAO said. Safety net hospitals consistently had lower median payment adjustments – that is, smaller bonuses or larger penalties – than hospitals overall in the first three years of the program, GAO said, although the gap narrowed over time. Small urban hospitals had higher median payment adjustments each year than hospitals overall, and small rural hospitals’ median payment adjustments were similar to hospitals overall in the first two years and higher in the most recent year. The agency was required to issue the interim report to Congress by Oct. 1 under the Affordable Care Act, and must issue a final report by July 1, 2017.
           
Study: Nursing supply projections much brighter today than 10 years ago
            
If nurses continue to enter the workforce at the current rate, the U.S. would have about 4% fewer registered nurses than needed by 2025, according to a study in the October issue of Medical Care. That’s a “remarkable turnaround” compared with the nearly 30% shortage predicted a decade ago, the authors said. “We still project the nation will have a shortage of around 130,000 nurses by 2025, which is by no means a small number, but not the overwhelming shortage that we had once anticipated,” said co-author Peter Buerhaus, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Montana State University. Last December, the Health Resources and Services Administration projected a surplus of 340,000 nurses by 2025. “The key difference between our projections and HRSA’s lies in how each model projects net entry into the workforce,” the authors said.

 


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