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2/29/2012

Michigan state and chapter leaders

Mark Goldstein, MSN, BSN, RN, EMT-P, the 2012 Michigan ENA president-elect, joins other Michigan state and chapter leaders with 2012 ENA President Gail Lenehan, EdD, MSN, RN, FAEN, FAAN (left), in New Orleans.

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2/26/2012

From your ENA member blogger ...

Such avenues to discover ourselves

Alison Day, MSc, RN – Warwick, England

Alison Day

“Who am I, and why am I here?” Such a pertinent statement to ponder on the last day of the ENA Leadership Conference. Laura Schwartz put forward this thought, among others, in her engaging presentation titled “Eat, Drink & Succeed, the Networking Power of Social Events.” Sharing stories of her work in the political arena, she was able to relate how opportunities could be used to meet new people, share experiences and garner opportunities for personal, clinical practice and organizational development. Read full post.

Laura Schwartz addresses the audience Sunday.

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Paramedics and nurses: Working together to align the planets

In his session, “Paramedics Are From Mars and Nurses Are From Venus—Bridging the Gap Between the Two,” Kevin McFarlane, ADN, RN, CEN, EMT, discussed how to improve communication between pre-hospital and hospital roles to benefit providers and patients.

McFarlane, who has both paramedic and emergency nursing experience, compared the different education and training backgrounds of paramedics and nurses, including research showing that nearly 50 percent of EMTs are volunteers.

“When’s the last time you saw a volunteer nurse?” he said.

Gaps in communication can occur during both face-to-face and radio reports between paramedics to nurses, which can lead to a critical loss of information that affects patient care, said McFarlane. He encouraged nurses to use standardized report formats, such as SBAR, SOAP and CHART, as well as to listen for clues coming in over the radio.

“You can tell a lot from a radio report,” he said. “Sometimes you can hear it in their voices.”

Electronic medical record charting and non-verbal communication can also be obstacles to clear communication.

“Paramedics can give you a lot of information if you give them the chance,” he said. “Go to their trainings and education, do your best to promote good relations.”

Amy Carpenter Aquino

Posted at 2:12 PM by Amy Carpenter-Aquino | Category: Education | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Are you ready to face the media?

Do you know how to effectively use the media to advocate for your profession? Attendees of ENA Chief Communications Strategist Anthony Phipps’ “Media Training” session at Thursday’s State and Chapter Leaders Conference learned how they can use the media to work in their favor.

This interactive session focused on the basics of reaching out to the media and different ways to get press by using hypothetical media situations for audience participation. Phipps presented his three big questions people ask when they consume media: “So what? Who cares? What’s in it for me?”

Some of the discussion focused on the influence of social media, as some attendees expressed concern over the time involved in regulating their state council’s Facebook page.

Phipps encouraged audience members to use the media to get their message out to educate legislators and the public.

“Who spends more times with the patients?” said Phipps. “Who translate doctor’s orders to patients? You must understand that you are experts. You are experts in emergency care and advocating for your patients because you do it every day. Why does it have to stop at bedside? Do it in public.”

Phipps also reminded attendees to talk to their institution to find out the rules before talking to the media, because every facility has its own regulations. Although getting your message out is important, you don’t want to put yourself at risk.

How are you and your organization using media to make an impact?

Kendra Y. Mims

Posted at 1:36 PM by Amy Carpenter-Aquino | Category: Education | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Getting connected to inspiration

The last sessions of the day are sometimes hard. People are tired, hungry and ready to relax. Before Rich Bluni, RN, LHRM, began his “Inspired Nurse” presentation, I overheard several attendees talking about how excited they were to see his presentation. It wasn’t long before even those who looked tired were wide awake.

Bluni was funny. And that was just a bonus. He delivered an empowering message to inspire and challenge emergency nurses while celebrating the things that make emergency nurses unique.

“We are the only people in the world who can talk about certain things and eat at the same time,” Bluni joked.

As he discussed how to connect to passion to avoid burnout, he posed a question to the audience: “What story defines you as a health-care professional? You have a story. Your team has a story. Create a book of stories for your ED.”

He also gave the audience several challenges: Notice something good in every coworker you come across within your ED for one day (even if you can only say their top and bottom scrubs match, he joked); for two weeks, write one thing down every day that you are grateful for at work; and do one act of anonymous kindness at work this week.

After his session, one attendee said that his presentation inspired her to become more grateful and to be cautious of even the small negative thoughts.

I felt his message applied to emergency nurses and beyond. Everyone, including me, got a healthy dose of inspiration.

Kendra Y. Mims

Posted at 1:23 PM by Amy Carpenter-Aquino | Category: Education | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Shhh … rumor has it

When was the last time a colleague approached you with an organizational rumor or gossip? Organizational rumors can be like playing the game of telephone:

1. I heard our hours are being changed.

2. I heard 12-hour shifts are being extended to 14-hour shifts.

3. I heard that staff members working fewer than 12 hours will lose their jobs.

Organizational rumors can change drastically when spread from person to person. Scott Thigpen’s, DNP, RN, CEN, CCRN, “Did You Hear What I Heard: Organizational Rumors” session, discussed the differences between gossip and rumors and how they can affect an organization by causing stress, tension, hostility and divisiveness in the workplace.

Attendees took a gossip self-test to see where they ranked. Thigpen pointed out that rumors tend to occur when high levels of change are happening in an organization, and research shows that rumors are accurate at least 85 percent of the time for noncontroversial organizational matters.

The session also discussed how social media can play a part in gossip; Thigpen suggested that hospitals should have a social media employee policy. At the end of the session, Thigpen reminded the audience to stay away from habitual gossipers—people people who gossip to you will gossip about you.

So tell us: What are some of the craziest organizational rumors that you have heard (please don’t mention organization names!)? We promise not to tell …

Kendra Y. Mims

Posted at 1:12 PM by Amy Carpenter-Aquino | Category: Education | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

New ED injury prevention toolkit to launch this fall

Have you ever experienced an injury in your workplace, such as a back injury from lifting a patient?

Is your emergency department in need of safety information on equipment, policies and training?

The ENA ED Workplace Injury Prevention Work Team has designed something specifically focused on creating a safer working environment in your ED. Attendees of the “Fractured Careers and Bottom Lines: A Toolkit for Injury Prevention” session were the first to see a preview of ENA’s Emergency Department Injury Prevention toolkit, which will be officially launched in the fall.

The toolkit (which will be available at www.ena.org) will include research articles, templates, staff education materials, sample policies and procedures; ED and staff assessments for members to customize; templates for members to bring back to their emergency departments; the ENA Workplace Injury Study; and other resources for people to use within their own workplace to create or redesign a culture of workplace safety.

Members of the ED Workplace Injury Prevention Work Team (Jeanne Fogarty, MBA, BSN, RN, TNS; Nancy Hughes, MS, RN; Vicki Keough, PhD, APRN-BC, ACNP, CCRN; and Cydne Perhats, MPH, ENA staff liaison, were onsite presenters) also shared statistics of workplace injuries and injury costs and risk factors. Several attendees raised their hands when asked if they had experienced a workplace injury.

Guest speaker Caitlyn White, LPN, daughter of ENA Executive Director Susan Hohenhaus, MA, RN, CEN, FAEN, shared her personal story of how a workplace injury in 2008 changed her life and career over the course of three years. White, who became injured in the workplace after slipping on water, talked about the importance of proper training for all staff on injury risk factors from patient lifting to water spills.

Be on the lookout for the new toolkit.

Kendra Y. Mims

Posted at 1:00 PM by Amy Carpenter-Aquino | Category: Education | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Here's what you told us:

Posted at 12:39 PM by Josh Gaby | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Our final winner has been drawn!

The last question might have been a toughie, but the correct answer was "(b) 2009." Congratulations to Barbara Greenwood, RN, CEN, the winner of our drawing for a free Disaster Man T-shirt! Come down to Cyber Café (located just inside the Exhibit Hall entrance) by 12:30 today to claim your prize.

Thank you to all of those who participated in the Disaster Man contests during Leadership Conference 2012. Be ready for more opportunities to jump in with the right answers during Annual Conference in San Diego in September.

Posted at 11:43 AM by Josh Gaby | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Increase in psych patients? Your ED can adapt

Ohio State University Medical Center, where Tammy Moore, MS, RN, is the director of emergency services, knows all about the ever-growing problem of psychiatric patients migrating to the ED for care—and often not getting it in a timely manner. The average stay of a psych patient in Moore’s ED had been 16 hours, with some hanging around for three or four days.

“That was difficult to watch these patients lie on a cot, and all we could do was feed them and try and keep them as safe as possible,” Moore said.

Many corrective steps have been taken at OSU, which Moore outlined in her Saturday presentation, Builder a Stronger Framework: Emergency Department and Psychiatric Renovation for Better Patient Care. Among them were creating a five-bed psychiatric holding unit in the ED and budgeting $150,000 for a psychiatric nurse practitioner for the ED. That person rounds with patients, the attending psychiatrist and resident team; researches patients’ health, medication and compliance histories and generally acts as a link between the emergency and psychiatric departments.

“I can tell you it’s probably been one of the biggest success stories we have had in our department,” Moore said. “I will say, though, that it took me a year to recruit the right person for this job. To get that mix of somebody who likes and knows psychiatric care and also can deal with the environment of an emergency department was a very interesting dynamic.”

Another positive step was offering the ED staff a chance to see psychiatric patients on the inpatient side through a shadowing program.

“It’s been amazing to watch this transition of staff who’d never at first wanted to take care of these patients, and now they’re seeing it different,” Moore said.

Josh Gaby

Posted at 11:25 AM by Josh Gaby | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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