Dear Readers,

I have been affectionately calling the October issue of Nurses Lounge-DFW our "disaster issue" because we planned a feature on disaster preparedness and a spotlight on ER nurses. However, as we started talking to nurses and emergency planners after Hurricane Ike roared through Texas, it seemed like we should call this our "inspiration issue." We have heard from more people than we can fit into our magazine about how they have helped prepare, address and recover from numerous disasters.

After waiting several days to make sure that we were not interfering in the important work our readers do, we were fortunate to find several nurses from the DFW area who selflessly volunteered their time to assist with the recovery efforts along the Texas coast. As a result, we were able to get firsthand insight into what it's like to be a nurse who chooses to go straight into the storm instead of away from it.

Appropriately, our career spotlight looks at emergency department nursing through the eyes of four local ER nurses.

Our disaster preparedness feature explores the important work that hospital safety planners do and the importance of nurse commitment during those critical practice drills.

As always, if you have a story or meaningful photograph that you would like to share, please let me know at aarmstrong@nurseslounge.com.

 See you in the lounge!

Anthony Armstrong

Our September issue is online! Click here to read our digital version.

Our August issue is now online! You can read our environmentally-friendly digital issue here.

Liko North America has announced the launch of a new "Toolkit" section of its Safe Lifting Portal Web site. The new portal section is designed to assist hospitals and nursing homes with the start-up, development, and on-going support of safe lifting initiatives. The Liko-sponsored Safe Lifting Portal is a pro bono injury prevention site designed to help nurses avoid musculoskeletal injuries caused by lifting and repositioning patients.

The Safe Lifting Portal cover topics such as how to start and deploy a program, how to achieve caregiver buy-in, tracking legislative activities, and calculating projected savings using an interactive return-on-investment calculator. It also includes a monthly electronic newsletter and a question-and-answer column called "Ask the Lift Doctor."

According to Melissa Nowitz, administrator of the Safe Lifting Portal, "Over the course of the three or more years of our portal's existence, many customers have contacted us and asked for individual items to promote safe lifting in their facilities -- ranging from posters to pamphlets -- and this new section allows us to make them available in one convenient location. Also, we are always looking for additional suggestions on how to improve the efficacy of safe lifting programs, and now we have a more direct means of sharing those ideas among healthcare workers and safe lifting committee members."

To access the Toolkit section of Safe Lifting Portal, visit http://www.safeliftingportal.com/toolkit.

The digital edition of Nurses' Lounge-DFW is now online. Simply click here to start reading!

The first feature is our cover story on Cook Children's Transport Team. These nurses work on helicopters and airplanes and conduct around 2,000 transports per year over a 110-county area.

If the heat and stress of the summertime-rush on hospitals is too much to bear, you'll enjoy our feature on managing stress. You'll see how many hospitals and facilities are becoming aware of the effects stress has on nurses and patient care and learn what they are doing to help nurses relax and clear their heads.

This month's Career Spotlight is written by special guest author, Judy Denison, MSN, RN, FACHE, CNAA-BC, Chief Nursing Officer and Associate Administrator of the world-renowned Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. She examines orthopedic nursing as a career choice in DFW and offers fascinating insight into pediatric orthopedics.

Finally, our CE article is a fascinating exploration of the growing need for genetic competencies in nursing and how advances in gene technology are changing nurse interactions with patients and their families.

JPS Health Network's Emily Meister, a certified pediatric nurse practitioner, and her husband, Paul, have re-paid Beatrice Kiddo, a shepherd-mixed dog found roaming the war-torn streets of Iraq, with a loving home and safe environment for providing love and companionship to their son and his unit over the last several months. Beatrice was found outside the men's compound in February hungry, pregnant and in dire need of tender loving care. An animal lover by all accounts, Captain John Meister and his unit nursed Beatrice back to health and even took care of her five puppies - growing attached to all of them over the course of several months.

Technically, soldiers are barred from caring for animals found overseas while on active duty as part of military regulations. As such, John and his group began making arrangements with Operation Baghdad Pups, an affiliate of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) International to have the dogs adopted and shipped to the U.S. The program has been in place since Sept. 2007 when a distraught soldier who rescued a puppy he named Charlie contacted the SPCA asking for help on getting the animal out of Iraq, as the military does not allow animals to be shipped back to the U.S. Since then, Charlie and more than 20 other animals have been adopted, received medical care and sent to the U.S. for a better life thanks to donations on behalf of the program.

Per the SPCA's regulations, animals must be adopted prior to being shipped to the U.S., and while all of Beatrice's puppies had homes waiting for them, Beatrice herself did not.

"I got a panicked call from my son saying no one had adopted Beatrice yet, and without a home she would be left in Iraq," Emily said. "I knew he couldn't bear that thought and he has enough to worry about over there, so I told him we'll take her and she'll be waiting for him when he comes home."

Beatrice is adapting well to her new home in the U.S. For more information on Operation Baghdad Pups, visit www.baghdadpups.com.   

JPS Health Network will dedicate its newest health center, the Gertrude Tarpley JPS Health Center at Watauga, on Thursday, June 26 at 5:30 p.m. An open house and reception will follow the dedication until 7 p.m. The event is open to the public.

The new facility, located at 6601 Watauga Road in Fort Worth, has three staff physicians specializing in family medicine and internal medicine, including medical director for the facility, Rajbir Sandhu, M.D., as well as a nurse practitioner. Debbie Craig will serve as health center director and will oversee a staff of approximately 30-35 employees, a majority of which live in Northeast Tarrant County, where the facility is located.

With 19 exam rooms and two special procedure rooms, this newest addition to JPS expects to see more than 16,000 patient visits in the first year of operation. Tarrant County Public Health will open a new location adjacent to the facility and tours will be available during the open house.  

Gertrude Tarpley, for whom the facility is named after, founded the Northeast Chamber of Commerce and led the group for 23 years. Often referred to as the "Queen Mother of Northeast Tarrant County," Tarpley died in 1994 at 90 years old. Her daughter, Linda Kay Peterson, is scheduled to speak at the dedication.   

The Gertrude Tarpley JPS Health Center at Watauga expects to start seeing patients by the middle of July and will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The center accepts Medicare, Medicaid, JPS Connection and most insurance.

The June issue of Nurses' Lounge-DFW is now available for viewing online!

This month's issue contains our National Nurses Week Round Up, featuring hospitals all over the metroplex and how they celebrated National Nurses Week with award ceremonies, festivals, galas and more.

For those readers looking for CE credit, our CE article, "Impact of Evidence Based Practices on Outcomes for Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients," highlights the essential components of a collaborative effort in the hospital for rapidly identifying and treating patients with an ischemic stroke and leading efforts in preventing stroke reoccurrence using evidence-based guidelines.

This month's career profile explores Medical-Surgical nursing and the movement to change the field's name to Acute Care in an effort to boost its shrinking ranks. We talk with local Med-Surg nurses and nursing leaders about this career as a specialty and the specific demand in DFW for Med-Surg nurses.

Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital (HMFW) officials named Karen Robeano, MS, RN, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer.  With more than 20 years of experience in clinical nursing and nursing leadership, Robeano has spent the majority of her career in nursing leadership positions, but maintains her clinical certification in neonatal intensive care. 

In her new role, Robeano will be responsible for the overall strategic, operational, clinical, regulatory and financial performance and success of the nursing services at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital.  Her role will be integral in the development and implementation of strategic and operating plans, policies and procedures.  She will also be a key leader in the hospital's Magnet re-designation process.  

Prior to coming to Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, Robeano served as the chief nursing officer at Mount Carmel Health in Columbus, Ohio 2004 - 2008. She also filled the position of interim chief operating officer at St. Ann's from 2005 - 2006. In her 20 years of nursing experience, she has also served as the director of perinatal services at Mount Carmel St. Ann's Hospital and the nurse manager of the neonatal intensive care unit at Riverside Methodist Hospital.

Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas (PHD) and Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital (HMFW) are the only two hospitals in Texas participating in a major, new safety initiative to change how U.S. hospitals treat high-risk pregnancies.

Throughout the 21-month national collaborative, called the Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative, PHD and HMFW are among 16 of the country's leading hospitals working to redefine perinatal care and eliminate preventable birth injuries.

Ranked near the bottom of industrialized nations in infant mortality, the United States averages five deaths per 1,000 deliveries. Additionally, U.S. infants experience close to three birth injuries for every 1,000 births, many of which are preventable, experts say.

"Looking at national statistics on infant mortality and preventable birth injuries, we saw an opportunity to lead the nation in change," said Deb Maitre, director of women's and infants' services at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.  "Our hospital's participation in this initiative will ultimately provide higher standards of care for patients in North Texas and throughout the country."

With the goal of eliminating preventable birth-related injuries and deaths, PHD and HMFW have begun making changes in many areas by creating protocols for: nurse/ physician communication; timing protocols for cesarean births; perinatal documentation with electronic medical records and patient simulated drills with the Perinatal Rapid Response Team.

"We are implementing strategies to move women's healthcare away from a business mindset and more towards true healthcare," said Amy Hailey, director of the Center for Women and Infants Health at HMFW.  "In the past, there have been requests from both physicians and patients to schedule a c-section around what is most convenient for either the patient or physician. Both hospitals are creating cultures that are moving away from what is most convenient to what is best for the health of mom and baby."

About the Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative

Perinatal team members at PHD and HMFW will participate in patient simulated drills for certain high risk protocols. Data from participants will be collected and results measured against benchmarks from similar hospitals.

• Baptist Hospital East (Louisville, KY)
• Baystate Medical Center (Springfield, MA)
• Bethesda North Hospital (Cincinnati, OH)
• West Virginia United Health - East City Hospital (Martinsburg, WV)
• Good Samaritan Hospital (Cincinnati, OH)
• Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital (Forth Worth, TX)
• Indian Path Medical Center, Mountain States Health Alliance  (Kingsport, TN)
• John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital (Phoenix, AZ)
• Methodist Medical Center of Illinois (Peoria, IL)
• Presbyterian Hospital (Albuquerque, NM)
• Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas (Dallas, TX)
• St. Joseph Hospital (Bellingham, WA)
• Univ. of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview (Minneapolis, MN)
• Fairview Ridges Hospital (Burnsville, MN)
• West Allis Memorial Hospital, Aurora Health Care (West Allis, WI)