Top 10 Nursing Stories of 2011

2011 has been a tumultuous year as healthcare organizations come to grips with value-based purchasing, rules for ACOs, meaningful use, and financial upheaval. Nursing has dealt with continued cost cutting while also being expected to lead care delivery transformation, improve patient satisfaction, and reduce healthcare-associated infections.

Here's a rundown of the most popular nursing stories we covered in 2011 in case you missed them or just want to have another look.

1. Five Reasons Nurses Want to Leave Your Hospital
Are your nurses engaged, committed employees? Or are they biding their time until they can go somewhere better? Mandatory overtime and ignored bad behavior are two issues that have nurses eyeing the exits.

2. Suicide After Medical Error Highlights Importance of Support for Clinicians
A tragic story about the death of a child from a medical error turned even sadder in the spring after the nurse who administered the medication took her own life. The incident served as a grim wake-up call for hospitals and how to deal with clinicians after errors.

3. 5 Ways to Retain New Graduate Nurses
New nurses have a difficult time bridging the gap from nursing school to practice and often don’t stay with their first job for the long term. Hospitals can recognize this transition and help new graduate nurses through the transition with these five strategies that ensure they are engaged, long-term employees.

4. Does Mandating Nurse-Patient Ratios Improve Care?
The debate intensified as more than a dozen states considered laws to establish hospital nurse-to-patient ratios. This article examined whether patients get better care, experience fewer adverse events, and have shorter lengths of stay and lower mortality with ratios.