Nurses practicing in home healthcare and hospice have much to be proud of-our special National Nurses Week celebration is May 6-12. You may know that the official celebration, ending on May 12th, is the birthday of Florence Nightingale.
This issue of Home Healthcare Nurse offers two articles related to wound care. As those practicing in home care and hospice know, many of our patients have wounds, often some that are long-term and difficult to heal. Jennifer Chang and Norma Cuellar bring an interesting paper related to that adage that "everything old is new again". Their article, entitled "The Use of Honey for Wound Care Management: A Traditional Remedy Revisited" presents new information about honey, which has been in use since the pharaohs. Another wound article is entitled "Enhancing Patient Outcomes-Reducing the Bottom Line: The Use of Antimicrobial Soft Silicone Foam Dressing in Home Health". As wound care and infection control go hand-in-hand, Paula Suter and colleagues presents an interesting look at telehealth and technology entitled "Telehealth Infection Control: A Movement Toward Best Practice".
As home care and healthcare at home of all kinds continue to grow, the kinds of technology and equipment used in the home will increase. As described eloquently by the authors, "HomeNet: Ensuring Patient Safety with Medical Device Use in the Home," explains that some equipment was not designed (solely) for use at home. This innovative FDA program seeks your input as the program grows-in the article is the online Web site to sign up for newsletter updates. This program supports safety initiatives and provides specific information about where exactly to report adverse events. The safety initiatives demanded for hospitals is moving to the community-into our patients' homes-the public's first choice for healthcare.
Leslie Neal-Boylan in her CE article "Update on Rheumatology: Part 1" provides an in-depth look at rheumatic conditions that impact so many home health care patients and their families. Different kinds of rheumatologic diseases, their identification, medications and treatments are reviewed.
Caregivers play an important and sometimes unrecognized role in healthcare. An interesting research study entitled "Cancer Caregiver's Self-Efficacy in Home Care and Symptom Management" shows why we must value and include caregivers in discharge planning and education. This pilot study looked at promoting family caregiver confidence in home care and symptom management. Training was provided at bedside prior to the hospital discharge. Home care nurses and others know the value of education for caregivers prior to leaving the inpatient setting.
Subscribers may have noticed that we are publishing more Focus on Research and Education articles. This column features innovative educational programs or initiatives that have applicability for those teaching home health care nursing. This issue's column, "Meeting the Linguistic Needs of Urban Communities," shows the efforts among an urban university, a school of nursing, and a home health agency to meet the linguistic needs of patients, and in the educational process, had nursing students, many of whom were bilingual serve as translators for non-English speaking patients related to influenza vaccination. This model is interesting to analyze and perhaps emulate. We need nursing, therapy, social work students, and others interested in home and hospice care!! Such programs support this tenet.
Readers may also have noted that we are receiving and publishing more interdisciplinary and international papers. There is much to learn from each other and if you have colleagues in other countries, we would like to hear their stories about what home care "looks like" there.
E-mail Tina Marrelli at [email protected] if you would like to talk about a possible topic or an idea.
Happy Nurses Week!!
Sincerely,