Articles by Jennifer Bunn, RN
Health & Healthcare | By August 04, 2008 | By Jennifer Bunn, RN | 1 Comment
Fall Prevention – Who is Ultimately Responsible?
It seems that as of October 1, 2008, Medicare will no longer be reimbursing hospitals for eight conditions that befall patients who are hospitalized, and that might have been reasonably prevented using certain evidence-based measures.
These eight conditions include:
* Pressure ulcers (bed sores)
* Objects left in patients during surgical procedures
* Falls suffered by patients while in hospital
* Blood incompatibility Read more →
- Viruses Cause Cancer?
- Emergency Rooms – Overcrowded and Understaffed
- The Eighth Leading Cause of Death in the U.S. is…
- The Ethics of Selling Prescription Data
- Charity Begins at Home – U.S. Physicians Volunteer
- Ethical Obligations of Health Care Workers During a Pandemic
In the 11th Report on Carcinogens, the US government added Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and certain papilloma viruses to their list of substances known to be carcinogenic. This represented the first time ever that viruses were included.
At the sixth annual International Conference of the American Association for Cancer Research, Dr. Andrew J. Dannenberg stated, “I believe that, conservatively, 15 to 20% of all cancer is caused by infections, however, the number could be larger, maybe double.” Read more →
Who is to blame when patients die in overcrowded and understaffed emergency rooms?
The story of the death of a psychiatric patient in a large Brooklyn, New York hospital got my attention, both as a nurse and as a human being. These stories are, thankfully, rare but still happen too frequently. In this case, lack of a bed for the patient was cited as the reason the patient was in the ER for almost 24 hours. The patient was reportedly suffering from a psychiatric condition, but deaths of patients have occurred in emergency rooms among patients with medical conditions as well. Read more →
The eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. is medication error. This statistic may surprise you. Other frightening statistics include the following:
* 7,000 deaths occur each year that are directly attributable to medication errors.
* Errors occur around 1 in 5 times that medication is administered.
* The FDA estimates 1 death per day due to medication errors.
The three most common errors are giving an improper dose, giving the wrong drug, and giving the drug by the wrong route (for example, intravenous instead of oral). Read more →
The compilation and selling of physician prescribing habits has been a common practice since the 1990’s. Many physicians were unaware that the issue was occurring.
Pharmaceutical companies argue that the mining of prescribing data has beneficial uses, such as providing information about drug interactions and long-term effects, and prevention of drug errors. Pharmaceutical companies have also stated that without the use of this information, they would be less able to target educational information. Doctors would see an increase in sales calls and a decrease in needed drug samples. Read more →
One of the biggest crises facing the United States today is healthcare. There are approximately 47 million people in the United States who have no medical insurance. Millions more have inadequate insurance coverage, cannot afford their premiums or deductibles, and have no access to dental care.
In the wake of recent international disasters (Myanmar and China to name the most recent), much publicity has focused on foreign aid. The U.S. spends billions of dollars every year to help those less fortunate in other countries. Read more →
The article I posted a few weeks ago in regards to the H5N1 vaccine caused me to consider a potential pandemic and the health care workers’ obligation to work should the event come to pass.
The World Health Organization estimates that
today a pandemic is likely to result in 2 to 7.4 million deaths globally. In high income countries alone, accounting for 15% of the world’s population, models project a demand for 134-233 million outpatient visits and 1.5-5.2 million hospital admissions.
Monday, March 22, 2010
- Religion - A "Natural" Phenomenon?
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 - The Five Myths
- How Culture Shapes Our Mind and Brain
- Sex, Violence and The Male Warrior Hypothesis
- The Secret to Good Health – Listen to the Data
- If Herbal Medicine is Medicine, Shouldn't it be Treated as Such?
- Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Neuroscience Conferences for 2010
- Too Much Information?
- "I Feel Your Pain" - The Neural Basis of Empathy
- Income Inequality and Health Outcomes
- The Evolution of Depression
- Journal Retracts Autism Research
- Speaking in Tongues - A Neural Snapshot
- Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
- Post-Partum Psychosis - Rare but Real
- Is Your Doctor Happy or Burnt-Out?
- Worried Well on the Web
- Ginkgo Biloba Ineffective... Again
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 - The Solutions
- Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction
- Empathy – How Much is Too Much?
- Let the Matches Begin!
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 4 – Their Life Today
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 3 – Try to Work Out their Troubles
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 2 – Revealed to be Complicated
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 1 – Introduction
- Deep Brain Stimulation – A New Frontier in Psychiatry
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 3 – Equip Teachers with Prescription Pads?
- Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
- Brain Blogger Finalist for Two 2010 Research Blogging Awards in Neuroscience and Psychology
- Tall Tales of Diabetic Amputations
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 – The Solutions
- Brain Blogging, Forty-Ninth Edition
- How Your Brain Groups Words
- The Child Brain and the Playing Teacher
- You Have a Right to Choose if we Agree
- Measuring Quality in Primary Care
- Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me A Match – The NRMP Main Residency Match
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 – The Five Myths
- When It Comes to Aging, Size Matters
- Often, patients report persistent physical symptoms, but no somatic ...
- Great help, understood who is a LEADER & a FOLLOWER. Is there a category wh...
- Don't agree, to my opinion empathy is not easily learned, it's a quality not eve...
- Thanks, got the meaning of INTELLIGENCE/IQ....
- I'm a 54 yrs old woman .i was working for a retail company for 5 yrs ,my husbend...
- Thanks so much for sharing. My daughter began having seizures when she was 17. S...
- yea ur right lol lughter the best medicine i cnt do without it in a day!!!!!!!!!...
- Very touching story. My heart goes out to your family. Seizures are tough. And ...
- Thank you for sharing your nephew's story. So hard on those who love him, but I...
- Congratulations to all who've matched! Although the results of NRMP Main Residen...
- It's been almost 25 years since my son suffered a TBI in an accident. He was onl...
- I tend to agree with the teachers.But a teacher can only keep a record about the...
- Very interesting article, the 5th paragraph gets a little biased...but I still e...
- Dear Dan,There is certainly much clinical interest in this field. ClinicalTr...
- I recently commented on a sciencedaily.com article reporting success with TRD an...
- I have family members who are teachers. After sharing this article with them, th...
- It is great that people are challenging the use of this medication. As, a societ...
- I agree with the stand of the teachers and their children's that more than half ...
- I think that there’s also a social aspect to it. If you grow up in an area where...
- I have had epilepsy since I was 9 and am now 42. I have tried about every med. o...

