Nursing Blog

VCU Libraries now has access to PsychiatryOnline. This is a database that contains a variety of resources from the American Psychiatric Society, with one of those resources being the DSM V.  Some of the other resources you can access through this resource are:

1. DSM® Library titles including DSM-IV-TR®, DSM-IV-TR® Handbook of Differential Diagnosis, and DSM-IV-TR® Clinical Cases

2. Journals including The American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Services, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, and Academic Psychiatry

3. Textbooks including The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry, Gabbard's Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders, Textbook of Psychotherapeutic Treatments, The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Geriatric Psychiatry, The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Substance Abuse Treatment, The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychopharmacology, and Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology

4. American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines for the treatment of psychiatric disorders
   

5. Clinical & research news from Psychiatric News

6. Medication information handouts for patients

(Some Information Taken Directly from Database About Section)

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since 2005 has been issuing policy briefs about nursing's future. The birefs cover a wide array of issues/topics.  These Charting Nursing's Future are now compiled in an archive that can be accessed at the link below. 

RWJF's Charting Nursing's Future Archives

Some of the policy briefs contained in the archive are:

• Improving Patient Access to High-Quality Care

• Unlocking the Potential of School Nursing

• Perspectives on Pay for Performance in Nursing

With most of the provisions of theThe Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  taking effect in January, 2014 a overburdened health care delivery system will be more stressed by an increase in those seeking healthcare.  To help offset that burden there is an increased call to enable nurses to practice to the full extent of their education and training.  This is reflected in a recently reflected in a brief that was produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.   Below you will find the RWJF policy brief as well as some other articles and resources on the topic. 

• "Improving Patient Access to High-Quality Care: Issue 20 of the Charting Nursing's Future series explores how to fully utilize the skills, knowledge, and experience of advanced  practice registered nurses. - RWJF"  - Link to PDF of issue.  
  • Policy brief: how to expand APRNs' scope of practice:  News Release about the RWJF brief

•  "The Latest Data On Primary Care Nurse Practitioners And Physicians: Can We Afford To Waste Our Workforce? - Health Affairs Blog"

Articles  - Just past the PMID number into PubMed to find the article

• Kuo, Y., Loresto, F. L., Rounds, L. R., & Goodwin, J. S. (2013). States with the least restrictive regulations experienced the largest increase in patients seen by nurse practitioners. Health Affairs, 32(7), 1236-1243. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0072   

  PMID: 23836739

• Dill, M. J., Pankow, S., Erikson, C., & Shipman, S. (2013). Survey Shows Consumers Open To A Greater Role For Physician Assistants And Nurse Practitioners. Health Affairs, 32(6), 1135-1142. 

  PMID: 23733989

• Sangster-Gormley, E., Martin-Misener, R., & Burge, F. (2013). A case study of nurse practitioner role implementation in primary care: what happens when new roles are introduced?. BMC nursing, 12(1), 1.

  PMID: 23343534

• Ryan, M. E., & Ebbert, D. W. (2013). Nurse Practitioner Satisfaction: Identifying Perceived Beliefs and Barriers. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 9(7), 428-434.  (Not in PubMed)

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Obamacare , as it has also been called, continues to be implemented with many of the major parts of the act taking effect in January, 2014.   Because of the effect these changes are going to have on the healthcare system there are many questions people have about the act and the effect it will have on them.   Below are some resources that may be helpful in answering these questions.

Full Text Of The Health Reform Law: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"

Summary of the Affordable Care Act - Kaiser Family Foundation (click here)

Affordable Care Act and HRSA Programs (click here)

"How does the Affordable Care Act affect me" | HealthCare.gov  (click here)

"Prescribed"  -  Wall Street Journal :  Interactive video that explains how the changes in the health care system will affect the individual and the delivery of health care. 

Well summer is here and while things at the library are quiet, I have had some time to do some reading.  In doing that reading I  have found some articles that touch on nursing practice and I thought could be interest. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to assist you with your research and have a great rest of the semester.  :)

Articles:

• Reuben, D. B., Ganz, D. A., Roth, C. P., McCreath, H. E., Ramirez, K. D., & Wenger, N. S. (2013). Effect of nurse practitioner comanagement on the care of geriatric conditions. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 61(6), 857-867. doi:10.1111/jgs.12268  - PMID: 23772723
  

• Article about the research article above : "NPs valuable in care of chronic geriatric conditions | National Nursing News" ( http://bit.ly/15YdrjT )
  

• "The Nurse as Family Doctor - NYTimes.com" ( http://nyti.ms/12yCyfg )
• "The Gulf Between Doctors and Nurse Practitioners - NYTimes.com" ( http://nyti.ms/12yFsjU )
• "Biden: 'Doctors allow you to live, nurses make you want to live' - The Washington Post" ( http://wapo.st/ZtIhSl )

Rams Reaching Out Exhibit :  An exhibition of photographs celebrating VCU Health Sciences outreach all over the world

Tompkins-McCaw Library, April 18 - Sept. 30
Tompkins-McCaw hours

This past week the entry below on PBS was called to my attention.  It is a piece that talks about different types of nurses, as well as the importance nurses play.  The article/web entry below talks specifically about some of the different roles nurses can play and the video expands on that. 

"Eight Types of Nurses You Never Knew Existed | PBS NewsHour" ( http://to.pbs.org/134VFLE )

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine there are two articles about nurses that are related to the expanding field of the practice of nursing and relationships with doctors.  Below are the two articles that address this topic along with an MSNBC article that addresses the perspectives of physicians and nurse practitioners on primary care practice.  If you want the articles below just log into the library site and cut and paste the article title in the PubMed search box.

• MSNBC Article About the Perspectives Article:  "Doctors doubt nurses skills, survey finds - Vitals" ( http://nbcnews.to/17z0fHx )

• Donelan, K., DesRoches, C. M., Dittus, R. S., & Buerhaus, P. (2013). Perspectives of physicians and nurse practitioners on primary care practice. N Engl J Med, 368(20), 1898-1906. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1212938

• Iglehart, J. K. (2013). Expanding the role of advanced nurse practitioners -- risks and rewards. N Engl J Med, 368(20), 1935-1941. doi:10.1056/NEJMhpr1301084

When it comes to health care, patients play a vital role and need to be informed and able to talk to their physician about the care they need or are about to receive.   To that end, there is a resource that has been created by ABIM, which is an organization of medical professionals whose aim is to improve health care through the advancement of medical professionalism.  The resource is called Choosing Wiselyand the aim of the resource is to promote conversations between physicians and patients by helping patients choose care that is:

1. Supported by evidence
2. Not duplicative of other tests or procedures already received
3. Free from harm
4. Truly necessary

The site points out that the recommendations made by the site should not be used to establish coverage decisions or exclusions.  These recommendations are meant to spur conversation about what is appropriate and necessary treatment. 

If you are interested in another resource that is based on the best evidence to help consumers made more informed decisions, this resource could be one to check out.  You can find the website by clicking on the link below:

Choosing Wisely