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Writing a Healthcare Competency: How Detailed Should You Get?

I get many questions from people about how detailed to get when writing a healthcare competency statement. Should you write a competency statement and then add a sub-set of details that reflect all the skill aspects of that competency or details that describe the steps of a given procedure? The answer to this is, “Not necessarily.”

April 1st, 2021

Article

American Heart Association Instructor Essentials Courses Now Available!

AHA Instructor Essentials courses are new online courses that have replaced the AHA Core Instructor Course, which has been discontinued. The Instructor Essentials courses are a required step to become an AHA Instructor, to add a discipline, and for all AHA Faculty.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Caregivers: The Importance of Taking Care of Our Four Selves

Janet Hagberg once said “If the three elements of body, mind and spirit are in balance, they reinforce one another; if they are out of balance they multiply problems.”

April 1st, 2021

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Top 7 Ways to Sustain Cultural Transformation in Healthcare

As I partner with organizations that have been on their Relationship-Based Care (RBC) journey for several years, invariably at some point the big question becomes, “How does my team maintain the exuberance and creativity to continue to deepen and also sustain our cultural transformation?”

April 1st, 2021

Article

What Sacred Work Looks Like To A Patient: Telling Your Story

Our industry is overrun with jargon. We have medical jargon, jargon for the business of healthcare and jargon for every aspect of its services.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Role Clarity as the Foundation of Professional Nursing Practice

Across the country there is a deep desire to elevate professional practice in nursing. It makes me wonder: Do we see the word “professional” as merely a label or does it help to define who we are?

April 1st, 2021

Article

The Importance of Touch Communication in Healthcare

Effective communication comes in many forms, but the importance of touch communication in healthcare can have a profound impact. Learn more from HealthStream.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Changing the Patient Experience Through Improved Hiring

At a time when hospitals are required to do more with less, the importance of having the right individuals in the right job becomes both a quality of care and bottom-line financial concern. The daily interactions between caregivers, patients, and their families create impressions that last long after the patient is discharged. Top performing employees demonstrate higher levels of patient care/service, increased satisfaction, and better engagement, all of which can ultimately impact your patient loyalty metrics.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Being There: An Encouraging Word About Hospice Care

As I presented to a group of HealthStream’s Home Care and Hospice agency clients recently, I was reminded again of the important role hospice has played in my life and the lives of others I have known.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Critical Care Online Training Resources: Valuable or Meaningless?

The answer to the above controversial question is that it depends upon two critical factors: how effectively online educational courses are utilized by institutional leaders and educators that purchase and assign offerings to their constituents and how seriously individual users learn and apply the content to enhance their clinical competency and patient outcomes.

April 1st, 2021

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The Importance of Nurse Competency Testing and On-Going Education

It might surprise many to know that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has reported that one out of every 25 patients in US hospitals are said to have been harmed by medical care. This stunning statistic accentuates the need to develop a clinical staff that is providing optimal care at all times.

April 1st, 2021

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Creating a Learning Culture in Healthcare

One of the responsibilities of a leader, especially in healthcare, is to create a learning culture where employees are at the very least technically competent and ideally at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines. With strong leadership, employees are never permitted to rest on their laurels regardless of age or length of employment. Nobody is permitted to practice OJR (on-the-job-retirement).

April 1st, 2021

Article

The Tragic Importance of Sepsis Training

For those of you who want to read a personal story about why hospitals are all focusing on Stopping Sepsis and Surviving Sepsis--the link below is about a 12-year old boy who died a few months ago of sepsis because the signs of early sepsis weren’t recognized by the healthcare providers. Not many things can take out a healthy 12 year old boy in 4 days – but sepsis can. The last paragraphs of the article can really break your heart.

April 1st, 2021

Article

What is Competence in Healthcare? (Part II)

While competency evaluation is obviously a tool for developing clinical and non-clinical staff, secondary – and equally important – goals of competency evaluation are to create business alignment among nursing, ancillary, and facility support staff.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth

Sisters of Charity Leavenworth Health System’s partnership with HealthStream allowed their education teams to create a training approach that provided system-wide access, standardization, and the ability to easily track and report required compliance training.

April 1st, 2021

Article

How Leadership Styles in Healthcare Impact a Staff

Research has identified a wide range of leadership styles. What is the best one for your organization and how do you develop leaders that will help build a great healthcare organization?

April 1st, 2021

Article

Should I Be an Emergency Room Nurse? Questions to Ask Yourself

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you wonder about becoming an Emergency Room Nurse. Healthcare organizations can select the best nurses for the ED by ensuring that they have both the clinical and non-clinical skills to be successful in this department.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Preventing Risks Involved with Compounding Medication

Understanding the risks inherent in sterile and nonsterile compounding and incorporating established standards into daily practice is essential for patient safety. Ensure staff is aware of the risks involved with this treatment option.

April 1st, 2021

Article

How COVID-19 has exacerbated the burnout crisis in U.S. nursing

Learn more about some recent findings that are drawing more attention to the nurse burnout problem in the United States. In this article there are examples of some root causes, with helpful suggestions that will help build resilience in each of the healthcare professionals. Not only are there ways for organizations to make a positive impact against nurse burnout, but healthcare leaders can model empowering behaviors in the interest of combating this problem.

April 1st, 2021

Article

Education Is Not Always the Answer in Healthcare

When mistakes and errors occur in our organizations, it is our obligation to analyze these problems and assess the reason(s) why they occurred. These problems have many different names: sentinel events, incident reports, near misses, etc.

April 1st, 2021

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