Effective July 1, 2023, Improving Health Care Equity became a new Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG).  NPSGs are established standards determined by Joint Commission to ensure patients receive safe healthcare in all health care settings.  You may know these as Universal Protocol, Safe Medication Storage, Correct Patient Identification (2 identifiers), and others.  Just […]

We are just 6 months, 16 days, and a few hours away from the final Magnet Document submission, February 1st, 2024!  Our Magnet Writing Team has been busy writing the stories of Nursing Excellence from across UAMS Health.  We are inspired to read about how nurses lead initiatives to change nursing practice.  Your writing team […]

In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM, now National Academy of Medicine) published a key report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, in which they called on the profession of nursing to advance our education and expand our professional practice in order for the “health system [to] reap the full benefit of nurses’ […]

I was recently in a meeting where nurses tearfully shared the burden that they feel in meeting (or failing to meet) the priorities and expectations set forth by leadership and healthcare in general. The underlying sentiment of their stories was, “my best isn’t good enough.” I could hear their disappointment in themselves, in addition to […]

The UAMS Resource Nurse Program was implemented in 2008 with the express purpose of improving patient outcomes through the engagement of clinical nurses in quality improvement projects.  This program started with a focus on infection prevention, skin care, pain, safety, and diabetes for inpatient nurses for 6-month terms.  Over the course of 15 years, the […]

Shared governance is a core tenet of nursing excellence and is a strong mechanism for bringing about change in an organization.   Shared governance is possible when an organization recognizes that nurses have the autonomy and accountability to make decisions about issues that impact nursing practice and patient care.  It is also the venue to bring […]

I first wrote about the importance of shared governance in February 2021.  Shared governance is a core tenet of nursing excellence and is a strong mechanism for bringing about change in an organization.   Shared governance is possible when an organization recognizes that nurses have the autonomy and accountability to make decisions about issues that impact […]

This year marks the 21st consecutive year that nurses have been voted the most honest and ethical profession in an annual Gallup poll. 79% of US adults voted that nurses had “high” or “very high” honest and ethical standards, ranking higher than 17 other professions. In sharp contrast, only 9% of Americans polled voted that […]

Two sisters were swimming off the coast of North Wales in Barmouth. Both were skilled swimmers, having taken lessons at school, but as the girls played, they were carried out farther and farther until they were pulled out to sea. On the beach, their mother, who could not swim, watched in horror as her daughters disappeared from […]

As we close out 2022, I wanted to provide an update on where we are with the Journey to Magnet at UAMS! Our Magnet Writing Team has been busy writing up the stories of Nursing Excellence from across UAMS Health.  We have completed 36 stories about Nursing Excellence at UAMS, which represents 35% of the […]