Protection for Healthcare Workers in the Caribbean

Protection of healthcare workers in the Caribbean region is receiving some attention at last. The First Regional Meeting for Latin America and the Caribbean on Health Protection for Health-Care Workers was held September 22nd-24th, 2009 in Maracay, Venezuela.

The meeting was organized by "PAHO/WHO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of Venezuela, the Instituto de Altos Estudios de Salud Dr.Arnoldo Gabaldon, and the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)" and brought together "policymakers, academics, hospital managers, epidemiologists, front line workers, and civil society from across the region".

"Healthcare workers are often exposed simultaneously to a variety of work hazards from various natures, including biological, chemical, physical, and psycho-social ones."

During the meeting "participants had the opportunity to gain hands-on experience on EPINet, a surveillance system for tracking needlestick injures and blood and body fluid exposure among healthcare workers."
Click on the title to read more from the PAHO website.

Working in Health

"An estimated shortage of over 4 million doctors, nurses and other health workers in developing countries acts as a major roadblock to economic and human development. Working in Health considers the fiscal issues in expanding the health workforce and the policy options available to governments. Through case studies in Dominican Republic, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zambia, it also examines recruitment, promotion, and pay policies in the public sector and their important influence on health workforce performance."

published by The World Bank. Click on title to access ebook.

NANDA-International Congress 2010 ~ Madrid Spain

Dr. T. Heather Herdman, NANDA-I Executive Director, is sponsoring two $800 scholarships for the 2010 Madrid Congress (May 12-14).
Intended for nurses in practice within developing countries [which includes much of the Caribbean], the deadline for application submission is December 1, 2009. (Applicant must be a licensed nurse in professional practice, residing in countries listed as Class II or Class III in this linked document, as well as a first-time NANDA-I conference attendee.)

Nursing Faculty Shortage Update: AACN

"In July 2009, 803 faculty vacancies were identified at 310 nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate programs across the country [US]. Besides these vacancies, 117 schools cited the need to create 279 additional faculty positions to accommodate student demand. The latest data show a national nurse faculty vacancy rate of 6.6% with most of the vacancies (90.6%) for faculty positions requiring or preferring a doctoral degree. The top reasons cited by schools having difficulty finding faculty were noncompetitive salaries compared to positions in the practice arena (32.2%) and the limited pool of doctorally-prepared faculty (30.3%)."

Reported in Medical News Today from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) .

Job Seekers check out the 'Applicant Blog'

The Applicant Blog has gathered seven useful SlideShare presentations for job seekers, along with other great stuff.
Worth your while!

Informatics: The Future of Nursing

"Marrying the clinical with the technological creates professional opportunites for information nurse specialists."

Have you considered specializing in Informatics?

"Information Nurse Specialists combine the expertise of nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage data gathered while caring for patients, and then making sure the IT system will aid in communicating that data to the appropriate personnel and carry out specific functions.... their role involves planning, designing, implementation, evaluation, systems maintenance, and supporting the system development life cycle along side their other professional colleagues."

Did you know that the average annual salary for information nurse specialists is approaching $85,000 annually? There are currently around 8,000 nurse informaticists but the need is 10 times that number with the wireless phenomenon happening, the need to access information at point-of-care, the EHR initiatives, the push for EBN, and other informatics developments.

Brain Drain ~ A CARICOM Dilemma

Interesting article by Rickey Singh, posted Sunday, August 16, 2009 in the Jamaica Observer . The article discusses the shortage of medical professionals serving the Caribbean region.

"According to data revealed by Caricom's Assistant Secretary General, Dr Edward Greene, this region has lost some 50,000 doctors, nurses and teachers over the past 11 years who have migrated to North America, Britain and other foreign countries.

Dr Greene, who shoulders responsibility for Human and Social Development at the Caricom Secretariat, in referring to research findings of 2006, has disclosed that accompanying the severe loss of professionals was also the drain on the public purse for money invested in training nurses and teachers in particular, with migrated nurses alone accounting for approximately US$2.02 million."

Click on the title link to read the complete article.

The 17th Caribbean Regional Nursing Council Meeting in Belize

The Regional General Nursing Council meets yearly to conduct its examinations which allows for the standardization and improvement of nursing education and the free movement of nurses throughout the countries of the region.
Nurses from the Caribbean Community and Belize are present in the city for the 2 week workshop aimed at reviewing previous examinations held in October of last year and April of this year. The Regional Nursing Council is made up of representatives from thirteen Caribbean countries.

"We have a common examination, similar to the CXC that all registered nurses take on completion and this gives them license to practice. We have representatives here from ten of the thirteen countries.” said Marjorie Parks, Chief Nursing Officer for Belize. “In Belize we have about 500 nurses total but that is no way enough to meet all our health needs but nurses have to go through rigorous training. Our nurses in Belize train at a bachelor’s level at the University Level. We have several nursing programs but the program to prepare registered nurses is for four years and they come out with a degree."

New Website Launched in Effort to Further the UN's Millennium Development Goals

"Research4Life is the collective name for three public-private partnerships which seek to help achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals by providing the developing world with access to critical scientific research.
Since 2002, the three programmes, Health Access to Research (HINARI), Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) and Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) , have given researchers at more than 5,000 institutions in 108 developing world countries free or low cost access to over 7,000 journals provided by the world’s leading science publishers."
Note that among CARICOM nations, institutions in St. Vincent & the Grenadines as well as Jamaica are eligible to participate!

Health Information Literacy: How it Impacts Your Patients

Close to half of all American adults have trouble understanding and using basic health information [states a recent report from the Institute of Medicine]. Most consumer health information and patient education materials are written at the 10th grade level or higher, while the majority of the population read at an 8th grade level or lower, and that is without the medical jargon!

So why worry?

~ "Literacy is the strongest predictor of health status – more than age, income, employment status, race or ethnicity, and educational level!
~ Emergency room patients with inadequate literacy skills are 2X's more likely to be hospitalized.
~ Patients with poor literacy skills are 5X's more likely to misinterpret their prescriptions.
~ People with low literacy skills have 4X's greater annual health costs.
~ The FDA, JCAHO, and NCQA require health care institutions to document evidence that patients have understood the medical information provided to them."

But what can you do about it? How can you identify patients with low literacy?
How can you improve communication with your patients?
Click on the title or here for excellent resources from the Medical Library Association to help you understand and address this issue.

Patient Safety Videos from the FDA

"FDA Patient Safety News (PSN) is a monthly video news show for healthcare professionals. It covers significant safety alerts, recalls, new product approvals, and offers important tips on protecting patients. Many of these PSN stories contain video footage and demonstrations that may be especially useful to educators in healthcare facilities and academic institutions."

Trinidad is Optimistic about it's Nursing Shortage

"Nursing shortage to end in 2012." reports Trinidad & Tobago's Newsday for Monday June 22, 2009.

Jerry Narace, Trinidad and Tobago's Minister of Health, "is confident the chronic shortage of nurses in the health sector will be remedied by 2012." What's his plan? ...for one to continue actively recruiting foreign nurses!

New Workforce Planning Research Tool Projecting Nursing Shortage in Ireland

"A Quantitative Tool for Workforce Planning in Healthcare: Example Simulations Report by the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit FAS on behalf of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs." by Jasmina Behan, Nora Condon, Ivica Milicevic, and Caroline Shally, June 2009; 136 p.

"The research, conducted by the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit at FAS, developed a quantitative tool that facilitates the assessment of how different policy scenarios and changes in the size and composition of the population, the main determinant of demand for health services, will affect the balance between the supply and demand of a range of healthcare occupations. The research has taken an economy-wide approach and also includes the private healthcare sector. It shows that there are shortfalls facing some occupations, while others are in oversupply... The research findings underscore the continuous nature of workforce planning... Only by adopting an on-going approach to workforce planning is it possible to optimally address the issues of either skill shortages or excess supply from education and training, as well as issues with an excessive attrition from potential supply and the existing workforce." Una Halligan, Skills and Labour Market Research Unit (SLMRU).

"Supply [of nurses] from abroad – Non-EU supply: non EU-trained nurses have become an important source of supply of late: in 2007 (the period February-December inclusive), 1,412 employment permits were issued to non-EU nurses. Over the period 2000-2006, 9,442 nurses were granted work authorisations/ work visas." (p.67)

Champion Nursing in America

A new website has been launched by The Center to Champion Nursing in America, with the stated purpose and goal: "To ensure every American has access to a highly-skilled nurse, when and where they need one." Another important goal for the Center is to work to "increase funding to expand nursing education" and "decrease turnover among new nursing graduates".
The Center is a joint initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Alzheimer's Project

In case you missed this recent HBO series on Alzheimer's Disease, or you may well want to view them again, you can still access it and other excellent information from the HBO Alzheimer's Project website.
This four-part documentary series takes a "close look at groundbreaking discoveries made by the country's leading scientists, as well as the effects of this debilitating and fatal disease both on those with Alzheimer's and on their families."

Click on the title link to the excellent informational website, the streaming videos, as well as 15 short supplemental films on the topic.