Biomedical subjects
A Minnick
Publications and source records attributed to A Minnick.
Cysticercosis: etiology and nursing care.
Cysticercosis is the most common parasite affecting the central nervous system and is a serious health problem in many parts of the world. An increase in immigrants to the United States from areas with a high incidence of cysticercosis has made it a relatively common diagnosis at neurological centers. This article describes the etiology of cysticercosis and assessment, treatment, and follow-up care of these patients.
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy.
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Ethnic diversity and staff nurse employment in hospitals.
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Managerial interests and personal attributes of nurses.
This study replicated another by Hanson and Chater (1983) that investigated the relationship between interest in management roles and personality, demographic, and career background characteristics of female nurses. For the present study, 128 sophomore, senior, and master's degree students were asked to participate and a self-selected convenience sample of 69 was obtained. Three instruments were used: The Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI), to measure personality traits; a demographic data questionnaire, to measure demographic variables; and the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, to measure managerial interests. The total sample of nurses exhibited an artistic-social-intellectual profile. The subhypothesis that nurses of different education levels would exhibit different personality profiles was supported. Analysis of VPI scores demonstrated a statistically significant association between higher educational levels of nurses and higher acquiescence scores, (F = 5.1729 with a significance level of 0.0082). Analysis of variance of Vocational Preference Inventory scale scores showed a statistically significant association between nurses interested in management and higher scores on the enterprising attribute (F = 5.7753 with a significance level of 0.0266). No significant difference was found between management and nonmanagement interest groups in demographic and career characteristics. The findings of this study contribute more insight and knowledge about nurses who select management and administrative roles.
The management of a multisite study.
Large-scale multisite nursing research projects require careful coordination of a variety of research tasks. Many nursing studies include caregivers and support staff as well as patients and their significant others as subjects, resulting in the need to develop and implement many different protocols. This article presents an implementation framework for multisite clinical studies incorporating the knowledge gained during an investigation of patient-centered care that was conducted at 17 hospitals involving contact with patients, unit managers, registered nurses, and other hospital personnel. Five areas of key research tasks are addressed: general systems design, public relations, human resource issues, data quality assurances, and data management. Management of a multisite nursing research study, including issues related to recruitment and roles of project staff, training, and key research tasks, are discussed.
What to do about the nursing shortage.
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Nurse administrator employment in group practices.
The decline in managerial positions in hospitals has resulted in nurses' increased interest in management opportunities in other healthcare system sectors. This study reports the responses of 963 medical group practices to a survey of educational preferences and support mechanisms for the preparation of administrators for this type of setting. The findings raise issues for nurse managers seeking nonhospital employment and for nursing schools that have defined their educational mission as encompassing the preparation of nurse managers.
Levels of data: the whys and hows of selection and analysis.
There are many challenges in selecting the level of a variable for data collection and analysis. Meeting these challenges is labor intensive and requires considerable skill; however, if a performance improvement project is to produce sound results, shortcuts cannot be taken. Studies that purport to show the impact of important variables on care influence the allocation of resources. The choice of a working unit level of analysis may be highly useful in meeting project goals and statistical requirements, but familiarity with multilevel techniques remains essential. If all or some of the variables must be aggregated, information about individual response rate, the extent and treatment of missing data, and tests of the collinearity of the aggregate data need to be made before proceeding with the analysis.
Beyond interviewing skills: twelve steps for training interviewers.
The measurement of many outcomes relies on patients and their families for information that can best be collected through interviews. The authors describe 12 practical suggestions that help ensure achievement of subject enrollment and interview goals.
What do nurses want? Priorities for action.
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An analysis of posthospitalization telephone survey data.
As part of a study of patient-centered care outcomes that requires the ability to be interviewed by telephone after hospitalization, 4,600 adult patients on 118 medical-surgical units in 17 midwestern hospitals selected by stratified random sampling were identified as potential subjects. This article describes response-rate differences and reasons for nonparticipation by gender, age, ethnicity, and race. Issues related to understanding and reporting response rates, reducing losses due to ineligibility, dealing with refusals, and tailoring survey approaches to special populations are discussed.
The impact of patient point-of-view pharmacy delivery on labor and quality.
A 37-bed surgical unit in a Midwestern Medical Center was the site of 30 day trials of three methods of medication delivery: (a) traditional medication cart, (b) patient point-of-view (PPOV1) delivery of regularly ordered medication by a pharmacy technician to the nurse server once a day, and (c) patient point-of-view (PPOV2) delivery of all medications (including stats and i.v.s) to the nurse server hourly between 0700 and 2300 hours. The purpose of this trial was to determine the effects of two alternative pharmacy delivery strategies on labor costs, use of professional nurses' time, and ten quality indicators related to medication administration.
Initiatives to build a competitive healthcare system: integrating service redesign and clinical pathways.
In this article, the authors describe how two separate initiatives (the redesign of hospital services and the development and implementation of clinical pathways) were integrated at an academic medical center. The lessons learned in integrating projects that were not conceived at the same time and in developing multidisciplinary teams to produce new case management tools may be used by clinicians and managers elsewhere. The service redesign project developed a role for senior, experienced nurses with clinical expertise and patient management skills to manage the care of groups of similar patients, focusing on patient outcomes. The clinical pathway project developed diagnostic related groups-based clinical pathways. The steps involved in clinical pathway development-stakeholder cooperation building, initiation of data collection tools, data analysis, implementation of the role of the expert nurse in "championing" the pathway, and evaluation of the effects of pathways-are discussed.
Comparison between reports of care obtained by postdischarge telephone interview and predischarge personal interview.
The question of when to survey patients is the subject of ongoing debate because of the rising interest in monitoring quality from the consumer's perspective. This study of 772 randomly assigned patients from 17 hospitals compared results from predischarge in-person interviews (HI) and postdischarge telephone interviews (PHTI) for differences in participation rates, respondents' characteristics, and reports of quality most affected by nursing. The methods were equally costly. The results suggest that hospital interviews may enhance response rates of some vulnerable patient groups without jeopardizing the results.