AORN journal
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Political apathy in the nursing profession can be attributed to numerous factors, including a perceived ethical conflict between professional values and political involvement, as well as a lack of strategy for political action. Differences in personal and professional ethics, conflicting loyalties, and a negative image of politics create ethical tension for nurses. Political-ethical conflicts can mean choosing between job, patient care, and personal ideals. ⋯ Many guidelines exist to help nurses understand why they should get involved in the political process. By using these guidelines, nurses can evaluate issues and use a valid method to assess problems, plan for action, and evaluate the effectiveness and benefits of specific strategies. In the second of this two-part series on political involvement in nursing, political-ethical conflict is explored, along with strategies for political action.
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At Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids, Mich, a process to verify patient identification, procedure, and procedure side and site was developed and implemented to improve the current process. Focusing on risk-reduction strategies, an interdisciplinary task force revised the facility's surgical site identification policy and improved the surgical scheduling form to highlight information for sided procedures. ⋯ Ongoing data collection verifies that the process remains in place and that team members are compliant. The improved process maximizes patient safety because it allows for early intervention when any discrepancies are identified.
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This article describes a statistical method used to determine the minimum number of OR teams that should be on call for urgent procedures, in-house versus on standby from home, to minimize labor costs. The OR manager obtains the number of ORs staffed at each hour of the 24-hour period of interest (e.g., 7 AM Saturday to 7 AM Sunday) from the surgical suite's information system. ⋯ This method enumerates all possible combinations of shifts to find the one with the lowest cost, and it ensures a prespecified service level. An example based on 248 weeks of data collected from a large surgical suite is presented, and staffing for emergency procedures is reviewed.