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New Directions: The e-newsletter of the Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative | |
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 Volume
2, Issue 1
September 21, 2004 Welcome
to New Directions, a publication of the Hartford Geriatric
Nursing Initiative (HGNI). This e-newsletter is designed to
inform interested academic and practice leaders, faculty members,
students, practitioners and others about the work of the HGNI and
provide the latest news and information relevant to geriatric nursing.
As many of you know, the HGNI is preparing professional nurses to play leadership roles in improving the health of older adults. In partnership with the nation's nursing schools and a variety of health care organizations and systems, this dynamic, national initiative, supported through a $38 million investment from the John A. Hartford Foundation, works in five areas, including: We are proud to represent this critically needed effort, which is involving the nation's top nurses—including you—in making a difference in the health care of our nation's older adults. If you would like more contact information about, and links to all of the programs of the HGNI, please see the HGNI's Evaluation Web site at www.geriatricnursing.info. In
this Issue
1. Washington State Residents and Ombudsman Sue Government Over Feeding Assistants 2. HGNI Launces New Web Site 3. Announcements 4. Tools, Resources and Opportunities 5. HGNI People 6. HGNI Link of the Month-GeroNurseOnline 1.
Washington State Residents and Ombudsman Sue Government Over
Feeding Assistants
The National Senior Citizens Law Center has announced that the Resident Councils of Washington and the Washington State Ombudsman Program has filed a suit in federal district court in Seattle charging that the federal government's feeding assistant regulations violate the Nursing Home Reform Act. The regulations, which ANA and other patient advocacy groups objected to in comments filed with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2002, allow nursing homes to use paid workers who do not meet minimum training requirements for nursing services to assist residents with eating. The regulations also allow minimal supervision of feeding assistants and do not prohibit nursing homes from using them to displace certified nursing assistants. http://www.capitolupdate.org/Newsletter/index.asp?nlid=135&nlaid=445. 2.
HGNI Launches New Web Site
The HGNI is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new Web site, www.HGNI.org. The site significantly expands the reach of the HGNI and provides a vehicle for sharing information among the HGNI partner organizations, nursing professionals and others interested in the field of geriatric nursing. The site includes information about the HGNI partners and programs, a calendar of events, resource information, back issues of New Directions, and more. Please visit the site at: www.HGNI.org. Feedback and comments about the site are welcome and should be sent to jbeilenson@aboutscp.com. 3.
Announcements
Baccaluareate Conference Please join us for the AACN Baccalaureate Conference, November 11-13, 2004 in Florida. This year's conference, Fortifying the Foundations: Teaching From an Evidence Base in Baccaluareate Education, will highlight programs, courses, initiatives, and other innovations built on the theory-guided, evidence-based underpinnings of nursing. Concurrent sessions that address specialty-specific curriculum, competencies and/or best practices will be offered. The John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing, in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), will conduct two sessions at the conference, offering participants a panel discussion on new strategies for integrating geriatrics into the baccalaureate nursing curriculum featuring Beth E. Barba, PhD, RN, Senior Advisor for Nursing Education Initiatives, John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing; H. Michael Dreher, DNSc, RN, Assistant Professor of Nursing, College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA; and Ann Marie Spellbring, PhD, RN, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD. Participants will receive a complimentary CD-ROM of resource materials which may be used as a baseline of knowledge for students in baccalaureate nursing programs. For more information go to: http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Education/Hartford/index.htm. BAGNC Has Moved! As of September 9, 2004, the offices of the John A. Hartford Foundation funded Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Scholar Awards Program are in a new location. The program is now housed within the Gerontological Society of America's headquarters. The American Academy of Nursing BAGNC Nursing Coordinating Center 1030 15th Street, NW, Suite 250 Washington, DC 20005-1503 Phone: 202.842.1275 FAX: 202.842.1150 E-Mail: Patty Franklin Pfranklin@aannet.org Yolanda Johnson Yjohnson@aannet.org Natasha Waples Nwaples@aannet.org 2004 HGNI Leadership Conference The 2004 HGNI Leadership Conference will be held November 17 -19 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Washington, DC. For a copy of the agenda, visit the BAGNC Web site at: www.geriatricnursing.org. NICHE Conference The 8th annual Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) Leadership Conference will be held on January 31-February 1, 2005, in New York, NY, with participants from hospitals around the country. The NICHE Clinical Updates Conference will take place on February 2, 2005. The NICHE Users Conference will be held on February 3, 2005. NICHE is a system-wide program to improve geriatric nursing care in the hospital setting, offered by the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing. For more information on NICHE, please visit: www.hartfordign.org and click on NICHE. New Funding for Research in Pain The American Academy of Nursing is pleased to announce a new partnership with The Mayday Fund of New York City. The Mayday Fund recently awarded $60,000 to the Academy's Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC) Scholar Awards Program. These funds will be used to award an additional $5,000 to selected 2005 BAGNC candidates whose research includes the study of pain in the elderly. For a copy of the 2005 BAGNC Scholar Award Application, go to www.geriatricnursing.org. Nurses Participate in Communications Conference Nine nursing faculty participated in the 2nd Annual John A. Hartford Foundation/American Federation for Aging Research Interdisciplinary Communications Conference in July in Chicago, IL. The nurses joined academic colleagues from social work and medicine in improving their posters, honing their presentation skills, and brainstorming interdisciplinary communications projects. The conference provided an excellent opportunity for the participants to network, and at least one interdisciplinary project has already resulted from this opportunity. The nurses who participated were: Janice B. Foust, PhD, RN, University of New Hampshire; Judith E. Hertz, PhD, RN, Northern Illinois University; Karyn Holm, PhD, RN, FAAN, DePaul University; Lisa Kelley, PhD, RN, MA, The University of Iowa; Alison Kris, RN, PhD, University of California, San Fransciso; Susan Loeb, PhD, RN, University of Delaware; William Puentes, DNSc, APRN, BC, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; Brenda Recchia-Jeffers, PhD, RN, Mennonite College of Nursing at Illinois State University; and Debra L. Schutte, PhD, RN, University of Iowa College of Nursing Adult & Gerontology. 4.
Tools, Resources and Opportunities
AJN Series: A New Look at the Old The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) has partnered with The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) to move best practices and deliver cutting-edge research information on the care of older adults to nurses across all clinical practices. The series, "A New Look at the Old," is a three-year project funded by two grants from Atlantic Philanthropies totaling $700,000. With the help of national geriatric nursing researchers, AJN will produce a bimonthly series on nursing care of older adults, publishing 15 evidence-based articles and columns over a period of 30 months. PRIMEDIA Workplace Learning will join the partnership to produce broadcasts and other multimedia materials such as videotapes, DVDs, and CD-ROMs to disseminate the series and related information to institutions and facilities that employ nurses and others involved in hands-on care of older adults. The John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing is also partnering with AJN to identify opportunities for distributing these materials to nurses interested in obtaining certification in geriatrics and to enhance knowledge of caring for older adults. The first article, "The Challenge to Come: The Care of Older Adults" by Nancy A. Stotts EdD, RN, FAAN (AJN Series Editor and Hartford Scholar) & Carole E. Deitrich MS, GNP, RN, is featured in the August edition of AJN. You can read more about the series, find out about CE opportunities, and participate in a discussion forum with the series authors and editors at www.nursingcenter.com. Special Edition: Three New OJIN Articles Three new articles have just been posted on the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. An article on pain assessment and management in elderly adults by Hanks-Bell, Halvey and Paice is a great addition to the Health Care and the Aging Population topic. To read the article, go to: http://nursingworld.org/ojin/topic21/tpc21_6.htm. Hartford Institute-American Journal of Nursing Geriatric Nursing Research Scholars Program at NYU Nursing The Geriatric Nursing Research Scholars Program, now in its seventh year, and co-sponsored this year by the American Journal of Nursing, is designed to foster new gerontological nursing researchers. Its long-term goal is to augment the contributions of nurse researchers toward enhancing evidence-based practice and improving the quality of health care for older adults. The scholars were chosen from a national pool of outstanding applicants actively involved in gerontological nursing research. All participants are doctorally prepared nurse researchers who are nursing faculty at universities and colleges or who are clinically based researchers at medical centers. Nineteen scholars attended a weeklong seminar held at New York University's Division of Nursing, July 12 to 16, 2004 and led by Elizabeth Capezuti, PhD, RN, APRN-BC, FAAN, co-director of the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing. During the seminar, scholars were brought together with teaching faculty—all nationally recognized nursing researchers—for an intensive and interactive experience in which they gained critical analysis and research skills. For more information visit: http://www.hartfordign.org/research/scholarsFellows/index.html. NIH Loan Repayment Programs The NIH Loan Repayment Programs can repay up to $35,000 of qualified educational debt for health professionals pursuing careers in clinical, pediatric, contraception and infertility, or health disparities research. The programs also provide coverage for federal and state tax liabilities. Participants must possess a doctoral-level degree, devote 50% or more of their time to research funded by a non-profit organization or government entity (federal, state, or local), and have educational loan debt equal to or exceeding 20% of their institutional base salary. U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or U.S. nationals may apply. The five NIH Loan Repayment Programs are the Clinical Research LRP, Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds LRP, Contraception and Infertility Research LRP, Health Disparities LRP, and Pediatric Research LRP. All applications for 2005 awards must be completed by 5 p.m., December 15, 2004. Visit www.lrp.nih.gov to apply. "Try This" Series Recognition of Dementia in Hospitalized Older Adults The John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing has posted the newest issue of "Try This Dementia Series" developed in partnership with the Alzheimer's Association. "Recognition of Dementia in Hospitalized Older Adults" supports nursing identification of dementia in the hospitalized older adult that may never have been formally diagnosed. Each "Try This" issue is a two-page document. On the first page is a description of why the topic is important when caring for older adults. On page two is an assessment tool that can be administered in 20 minutes or less. To download this, and other "Try This" assessment tools, please see: http://www.hartfordign.org/resources/education/tryThis.html. New NIH Funding Program to Support High-priority, Short-term Research The NIH has recently announced a new funding program. The High Priority, Short-Term Project Award, R56 grant will fund, for one or two years, high-priority new or competing renewal R01 applications with priority scores or percentiles that fall just outside the funding limits of participating NIH Institutes and Centers (IC). Participating Institutes include: The entire notice may be reviewed on line at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-047.html. Please contact your Project Officer for additional information. 5.
HGNI People
Meet the HGNI Communications Team Each issue of New Directions highlights a member of the HGNI Communications Working Group. This month we feature Deirdre K. Thornlow, MN, RN, CPHQ, Director, Gerontology Programs, American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Ms. Thornlow, was appointed Gerontology Program Director for The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) in February 2001. In this role, Ms. Thornlow oversees two grant-funded initiatives supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation. The Enhancing Geriatric Nursing Education project supports the development of gerontology curriculum and new clinical experiences in 20 baccalaureate and 10 graduate schools of nursing. The Creating Careers in Geriatric Advanced Practice Nursing project has awarded scholarship monies to 23 schools of nursing to expand opportunities for nursing students to choose a career in geriatric advanced practice nursing. Prior to joining AACN, Ms. Thornlow was the Director of Quality Operations at The George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC. With a background in health care administration, Ms. Thornlow managed the hospital's quality management, risk management, case management, and employee health departments. As the hospital's Director of Quality Management and Regulatory Compliance, she developed and instituted a hospital quality report card, which is still used by the institution today, and successfully led the organization to receive its highest accreditation score from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Ms. Thornlow's experience as an advanced practice nurse included the roles of Cardiovascular Clinical Nurse Specialist and Integrated Care Pathway Coordinator. A registered nurse in the United States and the United Kingdom, she received her master's degree in nursing at the University of California-Los Angeles and her bachelor's of science in nursing from Pennsylvania State University. Ms. Thornlow is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ), a member of the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ), and a member of Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nursing. Ms. Thornlow is currently enrolled in the doctoral program in nursing at the University of Virginia. 6.
HGNI Link of the Month: GeroNurseOnline
Nurse Competence in Aging (NCA) announces the launch of www.GeroNurseOnline.org, a comprehensive Web site providing current best practice information on care of older adults. GeroNurseOnline features: Nurse Competence in Aging is a 5-year initiative funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies (USA) Inc., awarded to the American Nurses Association (ANA) through the American Nurses Foundation (ANF), and represents a strategic alliance between ANA, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing at New York University. 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 Patty Franklin at Pfranklin@aannet.org, Deirdre Thornlow at dthornlo@aacn.nche.edu or Elaine Gould at elaine.gould@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 to unsubscribe to this newsletter, please reply to this e-mail and type the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject line. For more information about the HGNI's ongoing Evaluation, please see: www.geriatricnursing.info. |
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Copyright 2004 Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative (HGNI) |