Nurses promoting safety

“Safety is NO Accident: Live Injury-Free” is the theme for National Public Health Week April 4-10. The American Public Health Association is encouraging all Americans to think about how, by making just one positive change a day, you can prevent injuries and start living a safer life.

“Villanova Nursing faculty and students will use this week as a reminder of the important role nurses play in keeping individuals and communities safe,” says Prof. Kim Connolly, director of the College of Nursing’s Center for Global and Public Health. From discussing safety messages with patients in clinical settings—such as preventing falls at home or encouraging safe environments for children-- to providing education in elementary school settings, Villanova nurses will highlight the importance of thinking about and implementing safety measures at school, work, home, and in the community.

Why is patient safety an integral part of nursing care and teaching? Thirty million people are hurt seriously enough each year to go to the emergency room and injuries are the most common cause of premature death before the age of 65.

Here’s what you can do TODAY:
1. Buckle up
2. Stop driving while distracted or under the influence
3. Move cleaning supplies and medicines to higher ground, out of reach of children
4. Program emergency numbers, such as the Poison Control Hotline (1-800-222-1222), into your phone
5. Use car seats for children as directed
6. Have children use the bike helmet EVERY time
7. Check your smoke and CO detectors
8. Fix any risky areas in the house that can cause a fall
9. Ask your children about bullying in school or online
10. Find out who your children are talking to online

For more statistics and safety tips, visit http://www.nphw.org/nphw11/first1.htm.



 

Creativity in community health

How does a used plastic bottle save a life and the planet? Ask a Villanova nursing student. When senior nursing students travel to the Dominican Republic with faculty for an international pediatric nursing experience they perform health screenings and care for underserved children in the bateyes (shantytowns) surrounding the sugar plantations. They also educate volunteer community health workers (CHWs) about critical health topics for the region, such as asthma. Many young children have asthma yet when they need to have a dose of airway-opening medication from their inhaler, they are not able to synchronize the drug administration with their breath and don’t receive its benefits. Combining environmental safety principles with nursing ingenuity, the students recycle clean plastic drinking bottles to create a spacer—a tube attached to the inhaler that briefly contains the puff of aerosolized medicine near the mouth until the child takes a breath and inhales it.

Students teach the CHWs to safely cut off the bottom of the bottle to create the tube, line the edges with duct tape for comfort and tape the inhaler to the open neck of the bottle. The open bottom is placed over the child’s mouth area to create a seal, the medicine is dosed into the tube, and when the child takes a breath, he inhales the life-saving drug. Additionally, there are fewer plastic bottles littering the area, or being burned or buried and contaminating the environment.

Scenes from senior student spring international health experience in the Dominican Republic

April 6th Information Session: BSN/MSN Gateway Program for RNs

Are you an RN who wants a BSN? Learn more about our BSN/MSN Gateway Program for RNs at our April 6th Information Session! Join us from 5:30-7:00 pm in the Driscoll Hall Auditorium for Program overview • individual advisement • transcript review • student speaker • tours...register online for this free event at http://nurseweb.villanova.edu/surveys/Gateway/infosession.asp . Bring a friend!

Questions? Contact Dr. Patricia Haynor at patricia.haynor@villanova.edu or 610.519.7751.

Where nursing and engineering converge

Hemodialysis is just one of numerous examples of the nursing and engineering professions converging—even on Villanova’s campus. While Noelle Comolli, PhD, an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering was preparing for a freshman class project on the artificial kidney, she contacted the College of Nursing in search of a clinical expert. Answering the call was Tamara Kear, PhD, RN, CNN, assistant professor, who was then completing her doctoral dissertation at Villanova. Dr. Kear has over 15 years of clinical practice in hemodialysis with a variety of publications on the subject. She lectured to two engineering classes on renal failure and the clinical aspects of hemodialysis to aid in their understanding of the end-user experience. Theory met design in the burgeoning engineers’ projects. On March 11, the students presented their posters outlining their design of artificial kidney. In this photo, Dr. Kear is seen with two students from her lecture and their poster.

Hospice VP shares expertise with students

This morning, senior nursing students benefitted from the expertise of Terri Maxwell, PhD, APRN, vice president, Clinical Initiatives for excelleRx, Inc. — a company committed to palliative care pharmacy services for patients enrolled in hospice. Dr. Maxwell has an extensive background in hospice and palliative care. She has numerous publications and presentations at the national and international level and is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy.

Dr. Maxwell discussed the purpose and scope of hospice, the role of the nurse, pain management for dying patients and physical and psychological signs of end of life. Her guest lecture was part of the course Community Health Nursing & Health Promotion taught by Assistant Professor Elizabeth Petit de Mange, PhD, MSN, NP-C, RN.