Dear Nurse Colleagues,
The June issue of JONA features an interesting article by Dr. Cassandra Godzik and co-authors. In "Adaption of the Casey-Fink Survey Tool for Nurse Residency Programs: Making It Relevant for Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse Residency Programs", the authors address a gap in the literature related to the transition of new nurses to hospice and palliative care roles. In addition to the project team, researchers solicited the help of 7 national experts in hospice and palliative care to review the updated Casey-Fink Survey Tool for Nurse Residency Programs. Registered nurses in the hospice and palliative care field need training and confidence to be proficient in core skills including communication, interpersonal competence, and clinical skills required to care for the dying patinet. In this study, ten items from the CF survey were revised by the project team and then evaluated for relevance by the national hospice and palliative care experts. The content validity index (CVI) was used to determine item relevance. The authors conclude that the adapted Casey-Fink survey tool is ready for further psychometric testing, and next steps include administration to a new sample of nurse residents to determine construct validity.
In "Advanced Practice Provider Onboarding: An Academic Teaching Institutions Experience", Raiashree Koppolu and co-authors present a redesigned program with application in many settings. The new program targeted recruitment, retention and job satisfaction among Advanced Practice Providers (APPs). The authors describe the creation, development and sustainability of the APP onboarding program. The project was conducted at Stanford Medicine Healthcare and Stanford Children's Health. Historically the onboarding program for APPs was 1 day. The newly revised program was moved to virtual and was changed to a 2 day program. The authors review the new content and generously provide additional information on supplemental digital content, linked to the article.
In "Analyzing Apparent Causes of 30-Day Readmissions to Acute Care from Skilled Nursing Facilities", Dr. Keith Bakken and co-authors present an interesting study identifying issues with transfers from 8 skilled nursing facilities. This quality improvement project focused on 5 domains of nurse-led measures: 1) improved collaboration; 2) communication; 3) coordination; 4) clarification; and 5) cause analysis. Interesting findings include that 90% of the readmitted patients had an Emergency Department visit within the past 12 months; 100% of the readmitted patients had 4 or more chronic conditions; and 91% of those readmitted had low albumin levels. Also, it was interesting to read that the nurses at the Skilled Facilities differed in the reasons for readmissions from the nurses in the acute care hospital. I think this is a great project that could be duplicated in many settings to identify the root causes of avoidable readmissions.
Thanks for your support and interest in JONA. Consider being one of our authors and query Dr. Melora Ferren, our Social Media Editor at [email protected] about your ideas or projects.
Sincerely,
Karen S. Hill, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, LFACHE, FAAN
Editor-in-Chief
