|
New Directions: The e-Newsletter of the Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative | |
 |
||
 Volume
5, Issue 1
September 28, 2007 Welcome
to New Directions, a publication of the
In
This Issue
1. Hartford Foundation Funds Four New CGNEs 2. JPN Publishes Findings of National Survey of Geriatric Images on BSN Web Sites 3. Funding Available 4. Opportunities, Resources & Tools 5. Announcements 6. Link of the Month: Bandwidthonline.org for Hartford Foundation Grantees 1. Hartford Foundation Funds Four New CGNEs The Hartford Foundation recently funded four new Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence to prepare more than 500 nursing faculty members with expertise in geriatrics. The new CGNEs will develop innovative programs to recruit and retain new geriatric nursing faculty and to retrain existing faculty in geriatric nursing. During the next five years, the Centers will prepare 178 new doctoral and master’s trained geriatric nursing educators to teach nursing students. At least 340 existing nursing faculty will receive geriatrics training to help them better educate their students in the care of older adults. Three of the centers will create regional consortia to expand their geographic reach and train nurses serving elderly populations most in need. The following four institutions received grants to develop Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence: Arizona State University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Utah. For more information, please visit: www.geriatricnursing.org. 2. JPN Publishes Findings of National Survey of Geriatric Images on BSN Web Sites
The fact that nurses primarily care for older adults is not reflected on the Web sites of baccalaureate nursing programs, according to a study published in the July-August issue of the Journal of Professional Nursing. The article, “Portrayal of Nursing to Incoming Students: Results of a National Survey of Geriatric and Pediatric Web Images on Baccalaureate Nursing Program Web Sites,” presents the findings of a study funded in part by the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing. The study found that fewer than four percent of more than 11,000 images reviewed portray older adults. Of sites’ home pages, only eight percent have images of older adults—27 percent portray children and/or babies. This imbalance creates a misperception about today’s nursing care and represents a missed opportunity to stimulate interest in geriatric nursing. To read more, go to: www.professionalnursing.org/article/PIIS8755722307000221/abstract. 3.
Funding Available
Scholarships & Fellowships: Become a Geriatric Nursing Leader The application system is now open for the 2008 Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Scholarships (up to $100,000) and Claire M. Fagin Fellowships (up to $120,000), as well as Nurse MBA Scholarships (up to $50,000). Please go to: www.geriatricnursing.org/applications for application criteria. Spread the word! Applications are due January 15, 2008. 4.
Opportunities, Resources & Tools
Apply for Faculty Development Institutes Online! The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) is accepting online applications for the upcoming Faculty Development Institutes offered through the Foundation-funded Geriatric Nursing Education Consortium (GNEC). GNEC is an innovative national initiative to enhance geriatric content in senior-level baccalaureate courses. Administered by AACN, this program provides nursing educators with the skills, knowledge, and resources needed to ensure that the “best geriatric practices” are embedded in baccalaureate curricula and subsequently in the clinical care provided by newly educated nurses. Using a “train-the-trainer” approach, nurse faculty attending the GNEC institutes are expected to serve as leaders and mentors by sharing their new expertise with colleagues. The next two institutes are scheduled for February 27-29, 2008 in San Antonio, TX and October 14-16, 2008 in St. Louis, MO. Please note the change in dates for the October 2008 institute originally scheduled for October 8-10, 2008. The application deadline for the San Antonio institute has been extended to Monday, November 5, 2007. For more information visit the GNEC Web site: www.aacn.nche.edu/Education/Hartford/GNEC.htm. Try This! Assessment Series from The Hartford Institute Mental Status Assessment of Older Adults: The Mini-Cog The Mini-Cog was developed for use with older adults in all healthcare settings in order to detect dementia quickly and easily. The exam is composed of a three item recall and the Clock Drawing Test. For more information about the Mini-Cog or to read additional issues in the Hartford Institute Try This series, visit: www.hartfordign.org/publications/trythis/issue03.pdf. Clinical Content on GeroNurseOnline.org Moving to New Website—ConsultGeriRN.org Effective October 1, 2007, evidence-based clinical content on the care of older adults, developed by the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing at NYU, can be found on a new website, ConsultGeriRN.org. ConsultGeriRN.org is your resource for information on the care of older adults. On it you will find: New features coming soon. Please bookmark this site! Hartford Institute and AJN Collaboration: How to Try This Articles and Videos The Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing, NYU College of Nursing, in collaboration with the American Journal of Nursing, received a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation to produce and distribute demonstration videos and a companion series of journal articles for teaching nurses the use of geriatric health assessment tools. The How to Try This articles and videos will be available beginning October 1, 2007, for free download on www.NursingCenter.com/AJNolderadults. The How to Try This project translates and disseminates the highly accessible Try This tool box of geriatric assessment tools, created by The Hartford Institute, into 30 Web-based, no-cost demonstration videos and articles for faculty, students, and graduates. The tool box provides knowledge of best practices in the care of older adults in a way that is easy to understand and implement by all direct care nurses. Using actual nurses and actor patients, the new video materials demonstrate how geriatric assessments should be conducted, interpreted, and communicated to plan care for an older adult. Accompanying these videos is a complementary series of continuing-education articles published in the AJN that provide case studies and supporting information about the use of each assessment tool. The series is available online to read or download. For more information, visit: www.NursingCenter.com/AJNolderadults. 5.
Announcements Hurricane Summit Report Outlines Ten Key Recommendations The 2007 Nursing Home Hurricane Summit, an unprecedented cooperative effort of disaster planning and nursing home leaders from eight Southeastern states hosted by a Hartford grantee, the Florida Health Care Association, has released Caring for Vulnerable Elders During a Disaster: National Findings of the 2007 Nursing Home Summit. The paper provides key recommendations for long-term care facilities and emergency response centers to improve how frail and elderly citizens are cared for during a major disaster. The primary finding of the report is that nursing homes must be incorporated into disaster response systems at all levels—national, state, and local. During Hurricane Katrina, most nursing homes were not designated by disaster response systems as healthcare facilities, and therefore did not receive early calls to evacuate. They often found contracted transportation commandeered for other uses. Other critical recommendations include ensuring that all Emergency Operations Centers designate nursing homes as “healthcare” facilities to ensure that they receive priority status for restoration of utilities. The recommendations also hold long-term care providers accountable for knowing the capacity of their facility to withstand hurricane winds, knowing the storm surge/flood zone, and developing viable plans for evacuation or sheltering in place. Other recommendations address critical issues such as transportation and communications. To access the full report and key recommendations, visit: www.fhca.org/news/summitfinal.pdf. National Nursing Home Collaborative to Address Quality of Care for Frail Older Adults The American Academy of Nursing received funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies to develop the Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence Nursing Home Collaborative. The Collaborative aims to improve the quality of care provided in nursing homes to very frail older adults with complex and unstable health care needs. Cornelia Beck, PhD, RN, a leading expert in nursing home care in the United States, serves as the National Coordinator for the effort. The goal of the Collaborative is to improve care for frail elders and enrich the professional working environment of the nursing home by implementing a research-based professional nursing practice model that can be widely adopted and translated to a national standard. For more information, contact Pamela M. Dudzik, Project Manager at pdudzik@aannet.org or visit: www.geriatricnursing.org/hcgne/nhc.asp. Hartford Foundation Funds Geropsychiatric Nursing Collaborative The Foundation recently made a grant to support the creation and dissemination of standard competencies and curricula in geropsychiatric nursing to improve the nursing care of older adults and better serve their mental health needs. The project will be led by geropsychiatric nursing leaders from three of the John A. Hartford Foundation Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, with coordination provided by the American Academy of Nursing. For more information, please visit: www.geriatricnursing.org. Massachusetts Hospital’s Nurse Retention Project Aims to Improve Work Environment for Older Clinicians In an effort to accommodate an aging nursing staff, Massachusetts General Hospital launched the Aging Nurse Project to study concerns among older nurses and implement workplace changes to enhance satisfaction and retention. To identify older nurses’ greatest concerns, officials surveyed the hospital’s nurses, as well as those working in Michigan and Florida, and found that most older nurses are apprehensive about their stamina, physical health, and financial well-being. For more about this story, read the Boston Herald article at: www.bostonherald.com/business/healthcare/view.bg?articleid=1017227. BAGNC Scholar News Lisette K. Bunting-Perry, MScN, RN, a 2006-2008 John A. Hartford Foundation Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Scholar and Mayday Fund Predoctoral Scholar has published a book with Gwyn Vernon: Comprehensive Nursing Care for Parkinson’s Disease (Springer, NYC). The preface to the book notes: “There are approximately 500 nurses internationally focusing their practices on the care of patients and families living with PD. While we are proud of our growth, we realize that in the United States alone we have 1,500,000 people with PD to serve.” Later in the preface: “We should be mindful of the important and unique role we bring to the treatment team. Furthermore, we should be aware of how the team perceives our role and how nursing is valued by the team, patient, and family.” New AAN Fellows The American Academy of Nursing announced this summer its new Fellow inductees. Among the inductees are a number of leaders associated with the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity program. We congratulate them on this honor and achievement. 6.
Link of the Month: www.Bandwidthonline.org for Hartford Foundation Grantees The John A. Hartford Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of www.Bandwidthonline.org, a new, online communications resource exclusively for Hartford Foundation grantees. This password-protected site is rich with resources to help grantees in many aspects of their communications work—from developing scientific posters and brochures to conducting media interviews to creating dynamic PowerPoint presentations and more. www.Bandwidthonline.org is a simple, convenient, and just-in-time resource that provides one-stop shopping for current data on the state of our aging society today, quality photographs that lend themselves to the messages of health and aging, stories that are relevant to geriatrics and aging research, and communications tools and tips that are easy to use. Our hope is to enhance grantees’ full range of communications activities. To make its offerings even more robust, www.Bandwidthonline.org encourages grantees to share resources that they find or create. So if you have a helpful graph, a beautiful poster, a great photo, or a strong press release, please send it along. And send your ideas about the site, as well. We look forward to hearing from you! www.Bandwidthonline.org...Just in Time! (Hartford grantees will receive a password for the site in the next day or so.) . Write
to Us
We are committed to creating a monthly publication that serves your needs and interests. New Directions, therefore, welcomes your feedback and encourages you to supply ideas, stories, resources, news, and other content for subsequent issues. To make a contribution, please contact Pamela Dudzik at: pdudzik@aannet.org, Debbie Latimer at dlatimer@aacn.nche.edu, or Malvina Kluger at malvina.kluger@nyu.edu. Please
Note
If you know of someone or a group of people who would like to receive this newsletter, please send an email to John Beilenson at jbeilenson@aboutscp.com, and we will subscribe them. If you have received this message in error or would like not to receive this newsletter, please reply to this e-mail and type “Delete from New Directions” in the subject line. For more information about the HGNI’s ongoing evaluation, please see: www.geriatricnursing.info. If you have received this newsletter without graphics, but would like to receive it with graphics, please write to John Beilenson at jbeilenson@aboutscp.com for instructions on how to view an HTML email, or go to: www.hgni.org. |
||
Copyright 2007 Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative (HGNI) |