Problems with a new computer system are leaving thousands of recent nursing graduates in the lurch. California's new BreEZe online licensing and enforcement system, managed by the Department of Consumer Affairs in Sacramento, was intended to improve efficiency for 37 licensing boards and bureaus. But since the state's Board of Registered Nursing and nine other agencies started using the software Oct. 8, applications for graduating nurses have spent weeks in limbo. Approximately 4,000 were pending as of Tuesday, according to Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the Department of Consumer Affairs. "Our BreEZe computer system is not doing everything it was designed to do yet," he said.
Nurse practitioners would be allowed to treat patients and prescribe medications independently under a proposal by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration, a potentially significant — and controversial — change in the medical landscape aimed at expanding access to primary care. The ability of nurse practitioners to work independently of doctors has long been an issue of contention between the two professions, and states vary widely in how they allow nurse practitioners to practice. But the federal health law commonly known as Obamacare puts the debate in a new context: The expansion of insurance coverage to thousands more people is expected to raise the demand for primary care, at a time when the state already faces a shortage of primary care doctors and an aging physician population.
A nurse is in critical condition after being brutally attacked by a patient while on duty at a Brooklyn Hospital, police said. Police said the 40-year-old male patient attacked Evelyn Lynch, 70, at Brookdale Hospital and Medical Center on Friday afternoon, allegedly beating her unconscious, WCBS 880?s Jim Smith reported. Investigators say the nurse was removing Kwincii Jones' catheter in his fifth-floor room when he knocked her to the ground and began beating her repeatedly, CBS 2?s Don Champion reported. An acquaintance of the victim told CBS 2 that a fellow nurse heard the commotion and called for help, an action that may have saved the victim's life.
In an issue that could spur a health-care industry fight, a House select committee Monday will take up a 155-page bill that would give nurse practitioners independence to provide medical services without physician supervision. House leaders say giving more authority to nurse practitioners, at least in part, could help address a shortage of primary-care physicians in Florida. The bill would apply to a group technically known as "advanced registered nurse practitioners," who have more education and training than registered nurses. Along with applying to nurse practitioners who provide primary care, it would apply to specialists such as nurse anesthetists.
Being an intravenous nurse involves a lot more than sticking patients with needles. This specialty branch of nursing, with teams in most major hospitals, requires specialized training to install complex central catheters and to operate new technology making them safer to implant and less apt to cause infections. There are 13 nurses on South Shore hospital's IV team, who work 24/7 offering support to 36 departments in the hospital. Clinical coordinator and team leader Irma Sivieri has 10 years experience as a nurse, eight of them as an IV nurse.
The state's largest nurses union is pressing forward with a bid to require greater financial disclosure by Massachusetts hospitals and limit the pay of top hospital executives, moves being fiercely opposed by the hospital industry's trade organization. Massachusetts Nurses Association officials delivered a petition to Secretary of State William F. Galvin's office last week signed by more than 100,000 voters calling for a new state law mandating more transparency by hospital systems in reporting their finances and seeking to redress disparities between the state's richest and poorest hospitals.