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Nursing inthenews Caring for children • RNAO executive director Doris Grinspun told the Toronto Star that political wranlging to get the Shriners to build a new children’s hospital was embarrassing. In response to the name calling and celebrity endorsements, she told the Star, “Ontario and the rest of the country should be able to provide services and facilities without needing to rely on charity or the private sector.” (July 8) • In a column in the Globe and Mail, RNAO member and Hospital for Sick On May 13, RNAO member Edith Martel (right), a nurse at the Muncey Health Centre outside of London, received a Health Canada First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) Nursing Award of Excellence, presented by Carolyn Bennett (left), Minister of State (Public Health). Martel was nominated by colleagues for her 28 years of nursing work in outpost nursing and community health in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario. 10 July/August 2005 Welcoming new nurses Scott Hebb, one of the first graduates from the Fanshawe College and University of Western Ontario collaborative nursing program, said deciding to become a nurse after a career in gardening seemed logical. “I’m a nurturer – my focus has just shifted from plants to people.” (London Free Press, June 18) Children president and CEO Mary Jo Haddad wrote that children’s health cannot be ignored in the debate over health-care reform; investing in children’s care will save health dollars when those children are adults, but it requires targeted funding and political will: “… National health-care reform strategies ignore children.While they target adult wait-times for cancer care, heart care, hip replacements and cataract surgery, our children wait for subspecialists like pediatric neurologists and pediatric oncologists.” (July 19) • Julie Bisson told the Daily Press – Timmins – that the local TV Turnoff Week event was a big success. About 80 per cent of children from one school participating in the program were successful (June 30). Breathing easy • RNAO member Katherine Wolsey said Kingston General Hospital decided to become scent free out of respect for those who report migraines, fatigue and asthma attacks when exposed to fragrances from perfumes, deodorants and aftershave (Kingston Whig-Standard, June 18). • Jennifer Olajos-Clow said young asthmatic children suffer the most on smoggy days because they breathe quickly and have small airways (Kingston Whig- Standard, June 16). Heart care at home Christine Struthers said 40 new telehome units, will enable nurses to monitor and treat heart patients at home. It is not the miles that count. It is the trouble of people getting here.” (Daily Observer - Pembroke, July 7). May 13 also marked Aboriginal Nurses Day, and the launch of an Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada (ANAC) public awareness campaign to promote nursing as a career choice for First Nations students in grades six to 12. Illustration: Isabelle Cardinal/agoodson.com
Express admitting helps ease ER workload Why Nursing? Mary Timms became an RN because she wanted a career with unlimited possibilities. In her late twenties, she was working in computers but decided to switch gears and pursue nursing, a profession with more diversity. After obtaining her nursing diploma from George Brown College in 1978,Timms landed a job in critical care at a hospital on Prince Edward Island. She worked there until 1981, when she returned to Ontario to begin a summer job in the emergency department at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC).With the exception of a one-year stint nursing in Texas in 1994, Timms has spent 24 years at PRHC, primarily in emergency. She was part of the sexual assault team and became a sexual assault nurse examiner in the late 1990s. She also occasionally nursed on different hospital units on a temporary basis. “My heart was always in critical care or emergency,” she says. “But I believe you have to appreciate other people’s jobs.” In 2003, that love of critical care led Timms to help develop and work on PRHC’s patient transfer team and, in 2004, to apply for one of two positions on the new Patient Express Admitting Team, or PEAT. Responsibilities: Launched last December, PEAT is unique in Ontario and modeled after a similar program in New Jersey. It’s aim is to unclog the emergency department. “Emergency has become impossible to Name: Mary Timms run because there’s a backlog of in-patients,” Occupation: RN, Patient Timms says, adding that patients sometimes Express Admitting Team feel the admissions process is fragmented Home Town: Peterborough, and confusing. As a PEAT nurse, Timms Ontario holds some of those fragments together. PEAT patients are usually medical or surgical admissions who have a hospitalist – a doctor who only sees admitted patients – assigned to them. The patient or family members must also be able to interact with the PEAT nurse and be willing to complete a survey about the admission process to help PRHC monitor PEAT’s progress. Approximately 12 to 15 patients a day are eligible for PEAT. Timms spends over an hour with each patient completing a full medical history, explaining the tests or procedures a patient can expect to undergo, starting medications, screening for respiratory diseases, and keeping family members updated on their loved ones’ care.Timms also notifies community agencies if patients will need community services once they are discharged. Once a PEAT by Jill Shaw patient leaves Timms’ care and is sent to the appropriate floor in the hospital, staff on that floor has his or her thorough medical history and a completed admission screening, and can direct any questions about the patient to the admitting PEAT nurse. Challenges: Timms says she and one other PEAT nurse work regular weekday shifts, and can only see medical/surgical patients who have recently arrived in the busy emergency department. More than 80,000 people visit PRHC’s emergency room every year, and if a patient has been in the emergency room over the weekend, most of the required admissions work is already done.Timms hopes PEAT will be able to hire more nurses once the program demonstrates progress in areas like reducing emergency waiting times, improving infection control practices and easing patient anxiety. Memories of a job well done: Timms says PEAT is working. Initial surveys show it has slightly decreased the length of stay for pneumonia and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease patients. Feedback from other hospital staff indicates PEAT nurses free ER staff from some administrative duties, allowing them more time to spend with patients. There is also improved communication between the ER and other floors. For Timms, the most personal reward comes from working oneon-one with patients and providing them with continuity of care. “Patients feel informed,” she says. “If they know I’m the PEAT nurse and I’ve looked after them, they are able to ask for me if they have any questions.” Future plans: Timms hopes the program will continue to reduce waiting times and lower lengths of stay. She hopes to see more PEAT nurses caring for more than just medical/surgical patients. There has also been some interest in the program from other hospitals. In July, Halton Healthcare Services visited to learn more about PEAT, and a hospital in St. John’s, Newfoundland has also expressed interest in the program. But while PEAT is growing,Timms is nearing retirement. She doesn’t think she could ever retire completely from nursing and is still open to change. She would like to use her training as a sexual assault nurse examiner to provide education in the community, and has contemplated doing outpost nursing for a short time to link nursing with her love of the outdoors. “I’ve always been game to try something new,” she says.“Today, nursing has unlimited possibilities.” RN JILL SHAW IS ACTING COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER/WRITER AT RNAO. Registered Nurse Journal 11
Page 1: Exhibit unearths nursing’s past
Page 4 and 5: The journal of the REGISTERED NURSE
Page 6 and 7: The RNs role in ethical decision-ma
Page 8 and 9: y Jill Shaw Nursing inthenews R N A
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Page 15 and 16: Ontario has long held the distincti
Page 17 and 18: RN Beth Hamer, lead of the best pra
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Page 21 and 22: Top Left: Heiwete Girma covers a he
Page 23 and 24: Q&A with Suzanne Gordon For almost
Page 25 and 26: An Alberta nurse talks to an elderl
Page 27 and 28: Policy at Work Online letters pour
Page 29 and 30: NURSES STAY FREE! The Hillcrest Vic
Page 31 and 32: NURSING EDUCATION INITIATIVE A new

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