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Biomedical subjects

Naomi E Ervin

Publications and source records attributed to Naomi E Ervin.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

Does patient satisfaction contribute to nursing care quality?

The use of patient satisfaction tools is routine in healthcare facilities. What actually do the results of patient satisfaction surveys tell us about the quality of nursing care? The purpose of this article is to provide a discussion about patient satisfaction and nursing care. Recommendations are offered about how patient satisfaction may be used to improve nursing care and what changes may be needed to achieve a high level of patient satisfaction.

Choice Behavior↗

Environments of care: a curriculum model for preparing a new generation of nurses.

This article provides a perspective on the community-based curriculum model that has guided undergraduate education for the past decade, discusses some of the problems that have emerged with the community-based approach, and proposes an alternative approach for consideration and discussion. The community-based model is discussed in relation to three major areas of concern: faculty and preceptor implementation of the curriculum, entry into practice and hiring pattern disjunctions, and trends and unexpected consequences of changes in the health care system. The Environments of Care Model, proposed as an alternative curriculum approach, conveys a broad perspective on health and illness, based on a multiple determinants of health paradigm and a systems framework.

Community Health Nursing↗

The concept of decisional control: building the base for evidence-based nursing practice.

PURPOSES: The purposes of this article are to add clarification to the meaning of decisional control and provide a review of research related to the concept. DEFINITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF DECISIONAL CONTROL: A summary of the definitions of decisional control is followed by a discussion of the characteristics of the concept. The concept of decisional control includes the ability or power to decide what will be one's involvement in health care decisions. REVIEW OF RESEARCH: Studies on decisional control have tended to center on inpatient, physician office, or clinic settings with a focus on the diagnosis of cancer in which multiple medical treatment decisions arise. Most of the research thus far has been performed in the United States and Canada related to medical treatment. At this point, it is not entirely clear how patient preferences for decisional control relate to health outcomes. MEASURING DECISIONAL CONTROL: An overview of the tools available to measure decisional control follows the review of the research. FUTURE DIRECTION: Future research needs to focus on the identification of the differences in decisional control by country, in differing cultural and ethnic groups within countries, and in various geographical areas of countries. The relationship of patient characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education, and income) to decisional control preferences is not clearly identified. A large gap in the research relates to how nurses can facilitate preferred decisional control to improve patient outcomes through evidence-based nursing practice.

Decision Support Techniques↗

Assessing interagency collaboration through perceptions of families.

The purpose of the study reported in this article was to describe the perceptions of families about services they received from multiple health and social service agencies. The conceptual framework of the Interagency Collaboration Model was used to guide the descriptive study. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 12 families who had received services from at least 3 agencies in the year before data collection. Results of the study showed that families had an average of 5.6 services over the year before the interviews were conducted. Family incomes ranged from totally inadequate to mostly adequate. Education of the participants ranged from 6th grade to some college. Most services were health-related. Interviews revealed that agency personnel were aware of other agencies, according to families' reports. Domain similarity did not appear to be a characteristic of the agencies in this study.

Attitude to Health↗

Clinical coaching: a strategy for enhancing evidence-based nursing practice.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to describe how clinical nurse specialists can promote the development of knowledge and skills in nurses as one step toward making evidence-based nursing practice the norm in all patient care settings. BACKGROUND: The need for the use of evidence in nursing practice has been highlighted for several decades. Moving evidence more quickly into practice requires that nursing use many strategies. DESCRIPTION OF STRATEGY: The strategy of clinical coaching is proposed in this article for the development of skills in nurses specifically to promote evidence-based nursing practice. Clinical coaching is a relationship for the purpose of building skills. This strategy is aimed at increasing foundational staff nurse knowledge and skills. CONCLUSION: The achievement and maintenance of evidence-based nursing practice take continuous attention from clinical nurse specialists. Clinical coaching is only one part of a comprehensive approach for establishing and sustaining evidence-based nursing practice.

Diffusion of Innovation↗

Heart failure and weight gain monitoring.

Heart failure is one of the most common diagnoses of the elderly in the United States. The nursing literature has demonstrated that nursing interventions aimed at effective discharge planning and appropriate self-care activities can improve outcomes for patients hospitalized with heart failure. The purpose of this research was to identify, through retrospective medical record review, the discharge instruction related to self-weight monitoring provided to a sample of heart failure patients. The patients in the sample were 65 years and older with an ICD-9 diagnostic code of heart failure upon discharge from an acute care hospital in the Midwest. Results demonstrated the lack of nursing attentiveness to teaching self-monitoring weight gain to heart failure patients while hospitalized and the need for more comprehensive planning for appropriate discharge referrals. Suggestions are made for expanding documentation tools to improve nursing discharge planning and case management to ensure that the patient or caregiver is able to carry out self-care activities at home.

Aged↗

Integrating research into teaching public health nursing.

Integration of research into teaching provides an environment for students to not only learn how research is conducted but also experience how research contributes to improving practice and client outcomes. Integrating research into teaching is important because of the need to build evidence for public health nursing practice. This article describes an innovative approach by faculty to integrate research into teaching undergraduate and graduate public health nursing courses. This approach was developed using the Mexican-American Problem Solving research study. The purpose of the Mexican-American Problem Solving study was to develop, test, and refine a home- and school-based nursing intervention to improve family functioning, children's health conceptions, self-esteem, and mental health. Students were involved in all aspects of the study, including focus group sessions, instrument translation, data collection, intervention implementation, and dissemination of the results. The authors describe these activities and provide recommendations for successfully involving students in faculty research.

Curriculum↗

Development of an instrument measuring family care.

This study developed and evaluated an instrument to measure the quality of care given by family members to a patient in the home. The Family Care Measure consisted of 11 items, each of which was rated on a visual analogue scale. Fifteen registered nurses rated the care given by families of 72 eligible patients for whom the nurses had provided nursing care. Estimation of the reliability resulted in a high internal consistency. With deletion of five items from the measure, the internal consistency reliability resulted in a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .93. The six-item instrument correlated moderately, as predicted, with a scale of family coping (r = .76). With acceptable reliability and evidence of construct validity, this measure may be used in research studies, but further testing to assess its usefulness in clinical situations is recommended.

Adult↗

Evidence-based nursing practice: are we there yet?

The volume of evidence for nursing practice has increased as a result of research and scientific discoveries. Yet we are still struggling with the dilemma of how to get evidence into nursing practice. Estimates are that it takes 20 years before innovations are fully put into use. Research is one type of knowledge to be used in practice. Nursing and patient care would benefit from moving more toward knowledge based on research and evidence. This article reviews barriers to and facilitators of using evidence in nursing practice and discusses a model for promoting the systematic use of evidence in practice. The author also offers suggestions for increasing the evidence base of nursing practice. Using evidence in nursing practice is important for all nurses, but requires more that the attention of the individual nurse.

Diffusion of Innovation↗

Social justice issues related to uneven distribution of resources.

This article examines the social justice issues resulting from the uneven distribution of resources. In this article, justice theories are discussed in relation to two of these issues: lack of adequate food and shelter and inequitable access to an appropriate continuum of health care. Public health nurses have the obligation to deal with the results of poverty and the uneven distribution of resources, which pose a threat to the common good in the United States and throughout the global community.

Delivery of Health Care↗

Community readiness for a computer-based health information network.

The need for timely and accurate communication among healthcare providers has prompted the development of computer-based health information networks that allow patient and client information to be shared among agencies. This article reports the findings of a study to assess whether residents of an upstate New York community were ready for a computer-based health information network to facilitate delivery of long term care services. Focus group sessions, which involved both consumers and professionals, revealed that security of personal information was of concern to healthcare providers, attorneys, and consumers. Physicians were the most enthusiastic about the possibility of a computer-based health information network. Consumers and other healthcare professionals, including nurses, indicated that such a network would be helpful to them personally. Nurses and other healthcare professionals need to be knowledgeable about the use of computer-based health information networks and other electronic information systems as this trend continues to spread across the U.S.

Adult↗