Dr. Sellars Educate

Happy New Year!! As we enter into the new year of 2014, healthcare is more uncertain than ever.  The one thing we know is that change is coming!  In the spirit of change and improving healthcare, take a look at the December 2013 Nursing Management article that I've published with my colleague, Dr. Ann Mayo.  I've included excerpts below and you can go to www.nursingmanagement.com to download the full article and references. For more than a decade, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released reports that call for hospitals to explore possible solutions to complex healthcare problems. The Future of Nursing Report outlines 8 recommendations to lead change, advance health, and transform the healthcare environment.  The IOM recommended that hospitals utilize best practices and processes that promote patient-centered, quality nursing care. Sustainable transformation begins with the leadership team understanding the processes that create a culture of nursing excel...

Hello Fellow Nursing Leaders!! We continue to press forward with meeting our FON goal to get 80% of all RNs BSN-prepared by 2020.  I am so impressed with the students that I teach at CSUF in the RN-BSN program.  They are so engaged about this topic, and really see the value in achieving this goal.  We've had a few discussions this semester and discussed the following about barriers/obstacles with achieving this great goal: Peer nurses that have more experience feeling threatened and increased bullying in the workplace Managers feeling anxious about losing the RN to another hospital/leadership Not enough opportunities to be involved in decision-making (this is a good problem, I think) Feeling of frustration about manager behaviors that don't align with our studies about leadership Where is your staff on the 80/2020 scale?  Do you know?  If you're a leader of a healthcare organization, I challenge you to find out today!! Until next time... Nurse Le...

As we continue to push Healthcare Reform forward, we are reminded about the accountability that healthcare providers and hospitals must take in the problems we have with healthcare.  Dr. Marty Makary reminds us of this in his book appropriately titled, "Unaccountable: What hospitals won't tell you and how transparency can revolutionize health care". We have to become more transparent in healthcare, and this book shares insight into this problem, and how it affects healthcare.  When we think about the CMS mandates related to patient outcomes and CORE measures, it certainly brings us closer to rewards being tied to outcomes, but consumers still need to be better educated about what this all means. I propose the following steps:    -"Healthcare Now: HN": develop community advocacy groups to get the word out about every CORE measure in laymen's terms and talk about discuss area hospital metrics    -1-stop Repository: put all of the metrics tied ...

Happy New Year!!  The year 2013 will bring great changes, and challenges to healthcare.  One of the biggest focuses in healthcare continues to be the nursing environment.  There continues to be new evidence to support the need for healthcare workers to work in a collaborative manner to ensure quality patient care and a healthy work environment.  I attended a webinar this week presented by Dr. Linda Aiken who reported the following findings about nurse staffing, outcomes, and the work environment: According to the Practice Environment Scale (PES) nurses report that management is not responsive in resolving problems in patient care Each 1 patient in a nurse's workload is associated with 7% increased mortality (Aiken, 2011 "Medical Care") 38% of nurses have BSN that work at hospitals (range 0-80%) Patients in hospital with 50% BSN RNs have 15% lower odds on dying  Experience is not a substitute for education 41% staff nurses rated environment poor/fair (PES...

We are now in full swing for moving healthcare reform forward.  Regardless of how you "feel" about it, there will be changes to the healthcare system, allowing for health care for every one.  This is a very debatable and heated topic, so instead of sharing my personal beliefs, I'm just going to post a few facts about the Accountable Care Act.  Enjoy!!   - ACA  is ~2000 page document -the managed care plans have already started the ACO work; negotiations have already been decided between hospitals and mged care plans -ACO: local health care organization with a network of providers such as PCP, specialist, and hospitals that are accountable for the cost & quality of healthcare -Purpose of ACO is to deliver efficient and coordinated care; rewarded with a financial bonus for achieving performance benchmarks set by CMS (Centers for Medicare & MEdicaid Services) source: Managed Care Magazine, Oct 2010, 12-13 -goal is to deter overuse of services -...

I'm back!!!  Well there is lots of buzz occurring related to the future of healthcare reform, and what the presidential elections will "mean" for america and Obamacare.  So, instead of focusing on things we can't really control or decide, I wanted to remind the healthcare leaders reading this blog about the importance of working together-true partnering in the spirit of safe, quality patient care. The term interprofessional collaboration, IPC, is all about working together for safer patient care.  Academic institutions are including this philosophy into their curriculum at a fairly rapid pace, but clinicians seem to struggle with implementation.  A lot of the work related to IPC has been captured in the IOM reports on patient safety, but none have clearly outline evidence based practices of how exactly to make it happen, and more importantly how to sustain it.  There is work cited on blogs, and via internet about the great work being done with IPC at the Unive...

Hi Fans, it's been awhile since I posted any updates...sorry about that!  Well, I am now entering a new chapter in my career with the recent completion of my PhD at the University of San Diego!!  I'm so excited about becoming an academician at California State University at Fullerton, and hope you'll follow me on my journey.  Look for more posts to come...for now, the update on healthcare... -Obama has now instituted more support for well women care, which allows women to receive preventive care with minimal, or no cost to help detect diseases at an earlier phase (this is a big win for the females, and all of America) -Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are getting more "talk", as healthcare organizations are trying to figure out all the details (stay tuned to this blog for more info and the most current details) -and my favorite..."Transformational Leadership" continues to be a struggling concept for healthcare executives.  More organizational dev...