With Ebola continuing to make worldwide headlines and affect thousands of lives across the globe, nurses in the United States are preparing for something unfamiliar. With the fluidity of international travel, a potential Ebola case is as likely to happen in a large city hospital as a small community one.
And while an alarming recent survey by National Nurses United revealed that 60 percent of surveyed nurses said their organizations weren’t ready to deal with Ebola patients, nurses on the front lines still have to be ready for something unexpected.
“It’s really about relying on the skills, education, and training all nurses have,” says Tara Tehan, MSN, MBA, RN, NE-BC, SCRN, and president of the American Nurses Association Massachusetts. “It’s about using your patient history skills and your assessment skills and gathering the information to get it right.”
Tehan says that while Ebola is not a new disease, cases on US soil are unprecedented. So health care teams must be on a higher alert to diagnose a patient’s symptoms, especially any in light of recent travel. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), symptoms generally appear within 8 to 10 days after exposure, but that period can be as short as 2 days or as long as 21. Ebola cannot be spread until a person begins to show symptoms, so early detection is critical to keep the disease from spreading.
Many Ebola symptoms can mimic other conditions, so it’s not an easy call when you’re faced with a patient who is exhibiting concerning symptoms. So what should nurses be aware of?
CDC guidelines say nurses need to watch for the following typical symptoms:
Fever
Weakness
Severe headache
Abdominal pain
Diarrhea
Vomiting
Muscle pain
Unexplained hemorrhage
The CDC has posted Information for Healthcare Workers and Settings on its site and also includes a checklist for health care workers who might evaluate any possible Ebola patients.
American Nurses Association President Pam Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN issued a recent press release that calls for extra care and caution. “Now that the first travel-related case of the disease in the United States has been reported in Dallas,” Cipriano’s said in the release, “it is critical that all members of the health care team have appropriate knowledge, education, and personal protective equipment to effectively provide care to patients. ANA also underscores the need to practice meticulous infection control at all times.”
Being on a higher alert means following strict infection prevention measures and universal precautions, says Tehan. And Tehan advises nurses to have a low threshold for possible Ebola infections. The CDC, she says, is recommending that proper mechanisms be put in place if Ebola is suspected.
“We are relying on skills we already have,” says Tehan. “We haven’t had a patient in the US before but any time we see something we haven’t seen before and that has the potential for widespread transmission, we have to be alert.”
And although certain organizations and hospitals may be unprepared for seeing and treating Ebola effectively, Tehan says nurses are ready. “We are prepared,” she says. “This is what we do every day. Now it’s about applying it to Ebola.”
Are you curious about how your health compares to nurses across the nation? Ever wonder how safe and healthy your workplace is? Learn the answers from the American Nurses Association (ANA) HealthyNurse™ program, which is scheduled to officially kick off mid-November.
The program is designed to encourage nurses to practice healthy habits and become stronger role models, advocates, and educators for their loved ones, their communities, and their patients. The program will show how your health and workplace safety compares to national averages and ideal standards.
With funding from Pfizer, ANA will provide a free health risk appraisal (HRA) that will be available to 3.1 million registered nurses in mid-November. The 20- to 30-minute survey will cover lifestyle issues and workplace safety topics to provide real time data. For example, the data will help you understand what policies and resources may be needed to improve your work environment.
Once the HRA is completed, you will be directed to a portal where you can find more information, take quizzes or relax with a game or two.
Nurses who beta tested the HRA this summer produced revealing statistics, which include:
64% do not drink sugar sweetened beverages
65% eat 3 or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily
60% perform muscle-strengthening on 2 or more days a week
67% have experienced verbal or nonverbal aggression from a peer in their current workplace
26% have been physically assaulted by a patient or family member at work
32% get less than 7 hours sleep; 9% have nodded off while driving
42% feel obligated or expected to come to work even when sick or injured
42% report being diagnosed with hypertension, 48% lower back pain, 21% asthma
Will HealthyNurse™ be a tool in your efforts to protect your health? Check it out and let us know.
Robin Farmer is a freelance writer with a focus on health, education and business. Contact her at RobinFarmerWrites.com.
They flirt. Fight. Curse. Party. And that’s some of the behavior in the trailer of MTV’s Scrubbing In, a new reality show about a group of twentysomething traveling nurses in Orange County, Calif.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the controversy. Even before the show premiered on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 10 p.m. ET, critics were angered by the trailer and its less than flattering portrayal of nurses. (The trailer also featured the nurses working hard).
Already, more than 20,000 people have signed an online petition on change.org, calling the show “a misrepresentation of the nursing profession” and demanding its cancellation. The American Nurses Association (ANA) weighed in last week with a letter to MTV about the show’s distorted depiction of nurses.
ANA President Karen A. Daley, PhD, RN, FAAN, fired off a letter to MTV president Stephen Friedman. “Negative nurse portrayals seriously damage nurse-recruitment efforts and may well exacerbate a shortage that is fast reaching crisis proportions in our nations,” she wrote. “Negative images reinforce sexist and inaccurate nurse stereotypes, and these depictions do play a role in shaping the values, impressions and ultimately career choices of young people.” Daley asked nurses and their supporters to walk away from networks, companies and sponsors who “persist in disrespecting the most respected profession.”
MTV online commenters who watched the first show last Thursday generally seemed unimpressed.
“As a soon to be Doctor of Nursing Practice/Family Nurse Practitioner, I am so upset about this show,” wrote one poster. “It DOES NOT portray the art and science behind nursing.”
Wrote another: “This show is a disgrace to the nursing profession.”
But on the flip side, do viewers really believe reality TV is…well, real? These programs have writers for a reason. Still, I suspect some impressionable viewers may think these young nurses being shadowed by cameras represent the nation’s nurses. But is a boycott, which will lead to more publicity, necessary?
What do you think about Scrubbing In?
Robin Farmer is a freelance writer with a focus on health, education and business. You can reach her at RobinFarmerWrites.com.
