Cardiovascular disease in Filipino American men and women: A 2023 update.

With more than 4.2 million people, Filipino Americans are the third largest Asian group in the US and the largest Southeast Asian group in the country. Despite relatively favorable average socioeconomic indicators compared to the general US population, Filipino Americans face a significant burden of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, particularly among men. Moreover, Filipino Americans have high rates of cardiovascular death, often occurring at a younger age compared to other minority groups and Non-Hispanic White adults. In view of these trends, in 2010 the American Heart Association designated Filipino Americans as a high cardiovascular risk group. Despite this, in 2023, Filipino Americans remain underrepresented in landmark cardiovascular cohort studies and are often over looked as a group at increased cardiovascular risk. In this updated narrative review, we summarize the current state of knowledge about the burden of cardiovascular risk factors and diseases experienced by the Filipino American population. Our aim is to inform enhanced clinical, population, and policy-level prevention interventions and boost research in this space.

Ambulatory Care Nurse-Sensitive Indicators Series: Patient Engagement as a Nurse-Sensitive Indicator In Ambulatory Care.

Ambulatory care registered nurses (RNs) have a pivotal role in educating, encouraging, motivating, and supporting patients to be engaged in their care and achieve their health care goals. To improve health outcomes, patients need to be engaged in attaining these goals. RNs are instrumental in this process and well-controlled studies will demonstrate their impact on helping patient's engage in their care.

Review of the literature: Acuity-adaptable patient room.

The acuity-adaptable patient room concept is an emerging care model in which a patient is cared for in the same room through discharge regardless of the patient level of acuity. Such transfer contributes to errors in communication, patient disorientation, dissatisfaction, and falls. In the acuity-adaptable patient room model, the varying levels of care are brought to the patient to eliminate or minimize these adverse outcomes. Comprehensive literature search was conducted through search engines, web pages of regulatory bodies, institution of authority and other disciplines, research, abstract presentations, and anecdotal reports as well as hand searches focusing on the outcomes of the acuity-adaptable patient room on patients. Forty eight articles were written presenting evidence of positive impact of the acuity-adaptable patient room on patients.

Acuity-adaptable patient room improves length of stay and cost of patients undergoing renal transplant: a pilot study.

The acuity-adaptable patient room concept is an emerging care model where patient is cared for in the same room from admission through discharge regardless of the patient level of acuity. After implementation of the care cluster strategy to support the implementation of an acuity-adaptable patient room, a descriptive study was conducted looking at so whether there will be a decreased length of stay and cost on patient cared for in the acuity-adaptable patient room compared to patients cared for in a transitional care process. Result of the study showed decreased length of stay of kidney transplant patients from 9.6 (11.0) days (before acuity-adaptable patient room) to 4.1 (1.3) days (acuity-adaptable patient room). Not only that the acuity-adaptable patient room improves patient outcome and cost but with the nursing competency preparation to support the implementation of the acuity-adaptable patient room, a hybrid nurse was created who possessed both critical care and medical-surgical skills. This can be a potential trend in the professional nurse model to address the health care challenges we face today in terms of nursing shortage, abbreviated plan of care, and facility operation efficiency.

Experiences of the transplant nurses caring for renal transplant patients in an acuity-adaptable patient room.

This article describes transplant nurses' experiences in caring for renal transplant patients in the acuity-adaptable patient room using Husserl's descriptive phenomenology. The setting was a twice-redesignated magnet urban tertiary center in the Southwest United States with 14 acuity-adaptable patient rooms. Audiotaped interviews were analyzed using Colaizzi's method and a purposive sample of 10 transplant nurses. Three theme clusters emerged that described the essence of the transplant nurses' experiences in caring for renal transplant patients in the acuity-adaptable patient room: Patient and family comfort: "...I think their anxiety of just not knowing what's going on-that need is being met." Nurse empowerment: "...Her urine output was going down to the 40s and so I had to call the surgeon recommending that we maybe change the normal saline to half normal for replacement." Acuity-adaptable patient room future potential: "I wish that all patients had this kind of access." The nurses felt empowered in caring for renal transplant patients in the acuity-adaptable patient room thereby creating a healing environment for the patient and the family.

Best practice fall prevention strategies. CATCH!

In a quest to exceed the expectations of our veterans, the staff strives to perform at the highest level of competence in all endeavors. An opportunity to improve nurse-sensitive indicators associated with patient falls was noted. The fall prevention program was evaluated and a plan was formulated. The 5 principle elements incorporated in clinical trials for practice improvement included: collaborative interdisciplinary practice, active leadership engagement, use of technology to support processes, carefully executed communication strategy and house-wide change. As a result of practice improvements at the study facility, positive outcomes were evident. In a national database for hospitals having a similar bed size, the study facility outperformed more than half of others in regard to total falls and falls with injury per 1000 days during two-quarters.

The need for critical care nursing skills in an acuity-adaptable care delivery system.

With the relentless pursuit of patient care quality and patient safety, one has to explore every possible avenue to transform and redesign care delivery to remain solvent and meet the health care needs of patients in the future. Keeping patients undergoing renal transplantation in the same room from admission to discharge positively impacts clinical care outcomes on length of stay and cost. The success of this kind of care delivery lies on 1-week didactic structured training of the transplant nurses based on critical care concepts to manage fluctuations in patients' condition. With an added 3 months clinical rotation in the critical care areas, the competent transplant nurses were able to care for the patients undergoing renal transplantation in the acuity-adaptable medical-surgical transplant floor with confidence. A hybrid nurse was created who possessed both critical care and medical-surgical skills. This can be a potential trend in the professional nurse model to address the health care challenges we face today in terms of nursing shortage, abbreviated plan of care, and facility operation efficiency. Thus, the need for critical care nursing skills is invaluable to the success of an acuity-adaptable care delivery system.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) prevention through facility-wide culture change.

Hospitals across the United States and around the world are fighting the escalation of drug-resistant infections. In response to this costly and life-threatening problem, facilities are engaging in vigorous programs to prevent its occurrence and spread. This article presents one hospital's fight against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus by implementing a facility-wide program aimed at changing and standardizing the culture within the hospital.

Nursing Care and Treatment of Ambulatory Patients With Percutaneously Placed Axillary Intra-aortic Balloon Pump Before Heart Transplant.

Transplant cardiologists in our hospital have performed the percutaneously placed axillary-subclavian intra-aortic balloon pump procedure since 2007. This procedure allows patients to mobilize and walk while they wait for a heart transplant, rather than remaining on bed rest as they would with a traditional femoral intra-aortic balloon pump. This procedure has presented challenges to the nursing staff. A 2007 literature search revealed no precedent or published nursing articles on this subject. This article reviews heart failure, medical treatments, complications of bed rest associated with the femoral intra-aortic balloon pump, the nursing challenges and unique problems of caring for patients with percutaneously placed axillary-subclavian intra-aortic balloon pumps, and our solutions for those challenges.