Nursing Today - Revised Reprint

Book excerpt: A student favorite for its easy-to-read style, real-life applications, and humorous cartoons, Nursing Today: Transition and Trends, 7th Edition Revised Reprint helps you make a successful transition from student to practicing nurse. It covers the profession''s leading issues and opportunities, ensuring that you graduate not only with patient care skills but with career development skills including resume writing, finding a job, and effective interviewing. Test-taking tips and strategies prepare you for the NCLEX-RN? exam, and discussions of communication and management issues prepare you to succeed in the workplace. In this edition, well-known educator JoAnn Zerwekh and coauthor Ashley Zerwekh Garneau provide the latest information on nursing issues and trends including health care reform, patient safety, collective bargaining, and emergency preparedness. Thorough coverage prepares you for a professional nursing career by including all of the most important issues faced by the new nurse. An engaging presentation features lively cartoons, chapter objectives, bibliographies, and colorful summary boxes. Critical Thinking boxes are located in every chapter, with relevant questions and exercises to apply what you have learned to clinical practice. Evidence-Based Practice boxes focus on the research evidence that supports clinical practice. Real-life scenarios in each chapter illustrate and personalize the chapter topics. An emphasis on making the transition into the workplace is included in chapters such as NCLEX-RN? and the New Graduate, Employment Considerations: Opportunities, Resumes, and Interviewing, and Mentoring and Preceptorship. A companion Evolve website includes Case Studies for every chapter, test-taking strategies, a sample NCLEX? test tutorial, a sample NCLEX? exam, appendices, and resume builder templates for creating professional resumes and cover letters. Completely revised chapter on Mentorship, Preceptorship, and Nurse Residency Programs, complete with new relevant websites, online resources, and integrated recommendations from the 2010 Institute of Medicine. Completely revised chapter on NCLEX-RN? Examination and the New Graduate, complete with the 2013 NCLEX-RN? Detailed Test Plan. Health care reform is covered in the Economics of the Health Care Delivery System chapter, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the new Patient Bill of Rights as they apply to health care delivery and cost. Updated Health Care Organization and Patterns of Nursing Care Delivery chapter covers the results of managed care and explains the "p4p" (pay for performance) payment system, eliminating payment for medical errors as urged by the Institute of Medicine, and the collaboration at all levels of care to prevent medical errors and improve quality of care. A chapter on collective bargaining and unions covers the creation in 2009 of the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses, the National Nurses United (NNU), and related issues. Updated Emergency Preparedness chapter covers The World Health Organization''s (WHO) global pandemic influenza plan and its relation to public health and immunization. Coverage of QSEN and Patient Safety includes not only Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, but also the National Patient Safety Foundation and the Institute of Medicine competencies related to patient safety, as well as better communication among health care providers, quality improvement, and guidelines from The Joint Commission. Coverage of evidence-based practice includes management protocols and interventions used as the basis for clinical outcomes.