Leeay Aikawa

In anticipation of students and educators heading back to the classroom, Canadian Nurse checked in with heads of nursing schools across the country to find out what was on their minds. We asked them to describe the new developments in their programs and to discuss what they see as today’s biggest challenges in nursing education.

In this section, you’ll read about Manitoba initiatives that connect and engage nurses, advance education standards and promote leadership development.

Then, say bonjour to Benjamin Bakulu, Audrey Delcy and Jeanne Munezero, who came to Manitoba with dreams of a new life.

Nurse to nurse: A word from the wise…

For National Nursing Week, Canadian Nurse asked a number of well-known nursing leaders to share one piece of advice they would give to other RNs and students about the profession and their career.

We also asked our readers to tell us what advice they’ve received that’s helped them the most.

We heard from practising nurses, nursing students and retirees. Their responses covered everything from the political to the practical to the deeply personal. Here are some of the best.

Nurses play a key role in providing care to offenders serving time in Canada’s prisons. More than 700 nurses are employed by Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), and many of them go to work in one of Canada’s 53 federal penitentiaries. They represent the largest group of health-care professionals working in the correctional system, attending to the health-care needs of inmates from the time they enter the system, through transfers to other institutions and to their eventual release into the community. They provide a wide range of services.

ABSTRACT
The authors developed a survey as part of a study to explore the role of nurses employed in Canadian family practice residency training programs, which provide physicians with two years of additional training after they have completed undergraduate medical education. Licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners employed at residency training program sites have a unique opportunity to educate new physicians about nursing scopes of practice and about how to work effectively with nurses. A total of 127 nurses, including 94 RNs, from 41 program sites across Canada completed the survey. In this article, the authors present the findings specific to this RN group. RN respondents reported performing a wide range of nursing and non-nursing activities, and only 61 per cent indicated that they felt they worked to full scope. That so many RN respondents were performing below their scope of practice may be the result of employer and organizational policies or a lack of understanding and awareness of scope of practice. The authors propose that family practice residency training programs adopt a standardized approach to the role of RNs.

Think of it as helping to blow out the candles on a centennial birthday cake.

The Canadian Public Health Association wants health professionals and members of the public to take part in showing the world why the association’s 100th birthday is something to celebrate.

Canadian Nurse asked three leading nurse researchers to talk about the importance of nursing research and how we can build capacity that will serve health care and the profession in years to come.

ABSTRACT
Socio-economic status (SES) is recognized as an important factor that influences the utilization of health-care services. We set out to explore this association in the context of hospital admissions for the treatment of ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) — chronic conditions normally managed on an outpatient basis. We examined rates of hospital admission for the treatment of ACSCs overall and for three specific conditions: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and asthma in children. Data were obtained from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the Institut national de santé du Québec, and Statistics Canada. SES was determined using a measure known as the Deprivation Index, applied at the level of the census dissemination area (DA), the smallest geographical unit for which population statistics are available. This study accounted for 46,173 urban DAs classified into low, average and high SES groups. Statistically significant variations in rates of hospital admission were found across the three SES groups for all four ACSC categories examined. For example, hospital admission rates for COPD and diabetes in the low SES group were about 3.0 and 2.7 times higher, respectively, than those in the high SES group. Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms and underlying causes of higher rates of hospital admission for the treatment of chronic disease among people with low SES.

In the following pages, we introduce you to three RNs. Their careers have been diverse — taking their practices to distant lands, on the sea and to the skies — but they share a profound love of nursing and a strong appreciation for everything Canada’s eastern-most province has to offer.

We also bring you the story of a unique program in which RNs and other health-care professionals are partnering with the RCMP to improve mental health services in the Northern Peninsula.

We hope you enjoy this special feature.

ABSTRACT
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s introduction of a full-time nurse practitioner in a 116-bed non-profit nursing home provided an opportunity to explore a collaborative relationship between an NP acting as the primary care provider and a single physician serving as the consultant for complex care and after-hours care.

The outcomes were measured in terms of resident and family satisfaction, quality of care indicators and cost effectiveness. Data were collected from pre-existing quality indicators, including a resident/family satisfaction survey, transfers to acute care, and medication use statistics. Unstructured interviews were also conducted with nursing staff and members of the interdisciplinary team.