This July/August issue of Home Healthcare Nurse has the theme of "Chronic Care Management and Quality." The articles in this issue reflect the broad depth of this topic. As clinicians practicing in home care and hospice care at home, we know that wounds are a frequently seen problem. This issue presents an in-depth article related to wound care assessment and management. In a continuing education paper entitled "Say Goodbye to Wet-to-Dry Wound Care Dressings," Barbara A. Dale and H. Denise Wright skillfully present rational constructs of why we must end the use of wet-to-dry dressings for most patients with wounds. In this detailed feature article, information is presented to assist clinicians and organizations in improving practice by using up-to-date, evidence-based resources related to wound care. I believe this important performance improvement project has the potential to be replicated by other organizations for success in decreasing the use of wet-to-dry dressings and improving patient outcomes.
Heart failure and diabetes are two of the most frequently occurring diagnoses in patients cared for by home care. Both of these diagnoses have been linked to an increase in depressive symptoms. In the article "Depression Care for Patients at Home (Depression CAREPATH): Intervention Development and Implementation," Dr. Martha L. Bruce and her colleagues clearly explain a model for improving assessment of patients with depressive symptoms at home with information for individualized care planning. This continuing education feature is part one of a two-part article. Part Two will be presented in the September issue of Home Healthcare Nurse and is entitled "Depression Care for Patients at Home (Depression CAREPATH): Home Care Depression Care Management Protocol." Diane K. Pastor and Barbara Vogel's "Supporting Community Caregiving for a Spouse with Dementia: Research with Implications for Practice" article presents a small study about the difficult work of caregivers caring for patients suffering from Alzheimer's.
Chronic care, its management, and quality are themes being addressed worldwide. To that end, this issue of Home Healthcare Nurse has two papers that present information about what care at home looks like in their countries. The first is the Hospice and Palliative Care column article that comes from Roz McKechnie, a nursing professor in New Zealand, entitled "The Use of Nurses in Community Palliative Care." The second paper is the Global Perspectives column entitled "Home Care in Kanye, Botswana" in which the author, Dolores J. Wright, presents to us what home care looks like in that country. This discussion of the need to address chronic care, its management, and quality by nurses in all countries leads me to the topic of the recent International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting. This year, the meeting was held May 2 to 8, 2011 in the island country of Malta. Malta, a European Union country in the Mediterranean, is geographically located north of Africa, south of Italy, and west of Greece, and was a lovely and well-positioned venue for this meeting. The ICN meeting, which is held every other year, welcomed nurses from all over the world, and this year more than 65 countries participated. This meeting made one very proud to be a nurse and to hear the work being accomplished, the results being shown, and the work yet left to do in countries all over the world. One of the most moving presentations was a keynote by the First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame, who identified the steps being taken to improve healthcare in her historically war-torn country. Other speakers included our own former Lippincott Williams & Wilkins American Journal of Nursing editor Diana Mason as well as many other presenters representing numerous other parts of the world.
Home Healthcare Nurse editorial board member Mary Narayan and I were lucky enough to have had a poster presentation accepted for this ICN meeting in Malta. The poster was entitled "Excellence in the Patient's Home through Global Connections: An International Organization for Home Care Nurses (IHCNO)" and was very well received. Home Healthcare Nurse looks forward to receiving submissions from some of the nurses who visited us who practice home care in their own home countries. The following is a short update about the IHCNO.
The IHCNO achieved several milestones this past spring, increasing the organization's international exposure and enhancing its Internet presence. The first is the poster presentation at the Malta meeting. The poster was also, again, presented in Perth Australia at the May 2011 International Conference on Innovations in Nursing. This conference attracted many nurses from "down under." Again, nurses wanting to be part of an international community of nurses, who spur one another on to innovation and excellence in providing the highest-quality care for patients in their homes, joined the IHCNO community. Information about becoming a member of the IHCNO is available at http://www.ihcno.org or by e-mailing [email protected]. The poster presented at the Malta and Perth nursing conferences is available at http://www.ihcno.org.
If you are interested in writing about a specific topic and submitting a manuscript for peer review to Home Healthcare Nurse, please contact me at [email protected].
Tina M. Marrelli