Around the country, print, broadcast, and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni, and grantees. Some recent examples:

People who will be newly eligible for Medicaid after expansion under the Affordable Care Act will be younger and healthier than those currently enrolled in the program, according to a study by RWJF Clinical Scholars alumna Tammy Chang, MD, MPH, and program site co-director Matthew Davis, MD, MAPP. The researchers found that the new Medicaid enrollees will also be less likely to be obese or to suffer from depression, although more of them will be smokers and drinkers. Among the outlets to report on the findings: Reuters, Kaiser Health News, NBC News, NPR’s Shots blog, and Medpage Today.

Medpage Today reports on a study led by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars alumnus Craig Newgard, MD, MPH, finding that nearly one-third of patients sent to major trauma centers by first responders did not need that level of care and could have been sent elsewhere for diagnosis and treatment. This “overtriaging" raises per-patient health care costs by as much as 40 percent, the study finds. Read more about it.

While in Australia for a conference on reforming health care systems to meet the challenges of aging populations, RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program alumna Alicia Arbaje, MD, MPH, sat down for two interviews—one with The Australian Financial Review on how stereotypes about aging are changing, and one with Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio about transitional care and reducing readmissions among older adults after they leave hospitals. Read a post Arbaje wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about navigating care across settings and the role of caregivers.

Around the country, print, broadcast, and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni, and grantees. Some recent examples:

The U.S. News & World Report Economic Intelligence blog cites a study co-authored by RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumna M. Marit Rehavi, PhD, that finds mothers who are physicians are 9 percent less likely to have unscheduled C-sections than their non-physician counterparts. The researchers used this and other data to examine the interaction between patient information and financial incentives for physicians, as C-sections are typically more profitable than traditional deliveries.

A low-cost, home-based program called “Beat the Blues” lowers depressive symptoms among older African Americans who are having trouble paying for basic needs, according to a study co-authored by RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholar Sarah Szanton, PhD, CRNP. Szanton’s findings coupled with those in another study that showed meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms from the program “suggest that depression can be 'decoupled’ from financial strain," Nurse.com reports.

Harold Pollack, PhD, MPP, co-authored a post for the Washington Post Wonk blog about research he led that finds adults whose households receive support from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are only slightly more likely than non-recipients to display substance use disorders. “Proposals to drug-test SNAP recipients don’t address the genuine challenges posed by drug and alcohol misuse in American society,” he writes. “Instead, poor families who seek a little help with the food money are being used as stage extras in a different, nasty ideological fight.” Pollack is an alumnus of the Scholars in Health Policy Research program and recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

Timothy Landers, RN, CNP, PhD is a 2012-2015 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar and an assistant professor at The Ohio State University.

A piece of technology that has transformed modern health care—and our careers—is the underappreciated hand sanitizer dispenser.

Nearly every field of nursing and medicine depends on advances in the prevention and treatment of infection. For example, it is now possible to perform extended surgeries on the brain or heart while controlling the risk of later death from infection. Combined with infection prevention activities, it is now possible to give immune-suppressing drugs to cancer patients who would otherwise certainly die of an infection at some point in their disease process. One hundred years ago, patients with trauma often died of infectious complications several days after the acute injury. 

Advances in every field of medicine depend on good infection control. And good infection control depends on good hand hygiene. And good hand hygiene depends on the hand sanitizer dispenser.

Kathleen Hickey, EdD, FNP-BC, ANP-BC, FAAN, is a nurse practitioner in cardiac electrophysiology, an assistant professor at the Columbia University School of Nursing, and an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nurse Faculty Scholars program. Hickey is president of the International Society of Nurses in Genetics.

As a cardiovascular nurse practitioner, there have been many instances when a patient has reported an intermittent and sporadic racing of the heart, chest pressure or other vague symptom. If I had only an ECG (electrocardiogram) when that was happening, I thought to myself on many occasions.

But as most practitioners know, in the real world such episodes rarely occur while the patient is right in front of them. Rather, symptoms occur when the patient is at home, at work, has just left the provider’s office, or is on vacation!

The widespread use of smart phones has resulted in a plethora of gadgets, gizmos, and associated health care applications—but one I can’t live without is the AliveCor heart recorder and application that is now compatible with the iPhone.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholar Maria Katapodi, PhD, RN, FAAN, has developed a program to help women at high genetic risk of breast and ovarian cancer share the news with family members, who might also be at risk,  AnnArbor.com reports. The “Family Gene Toolkit” program pairs patients with a genetic counselor and an oncology nurse to discuss how and why to reveal the results of a positive genetic test to family members.

A study led by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumna Rebecca Thurston, PhD, finds that menopausal women tend to underestimate how often they have hot flashes and night sweats, Medical XPress reports. Treatment for these "vasomotor" symptoms (VMS) is tailored to patients’ self-reported data, meaning the current approach may be underestimating the burden on women. “While very common in menopausal women, hot flashes and night sweats can disrupt a woman's quality of life significantly,” Thurston said. “In order to test new treatments, we need to be sure we are assessing a woman's VMS as accurately as possible.”

RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Cynthia Crone, MNSc, APN, CPNP, spoke to the Kansas City Star about a $24 million outreach effort underway in Arkansas to inform residents about how to sign up for coverage in the state’s insurance marketplace, when open enrollment begins October 1. Crone leads the Arkansas Insurance Department's Health Benefits Exchange Partnership division.

In discussing Medicare’s new hospital-payment system that takes patient satisfaction scores into account, Lisa Rosenbaum, MD, an RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar, wrote in the New Yorker: “Though there are several factors informing the general likability of physicians beyond how we feel about what they tell us, there is no reason to assume we would be somehow immune to this cognitive bias when it comes time to rate them.”

The following are among the many honors received recently by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, grantees and alumni.

Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH, has been named dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He comes to the U.S. Military Medical School from the RAND Corporation, where he was the Paul O’Neill-Alcoa Chair in Health Policy Analysis.  Before that, Kellermann was at the Emory School of Medicine.  Kellermann is an alumnus of both the RWJF Health Policy Fellows program and the RWJF Clinical Scholars program.

The American Academy of Nursing will induct 12 RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows and four RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholars into its 2013 “Class of Fellows,” which is among the most prestigious honors in the nursing profession. The Executive Nurse Fellows are: Margaret Baker, PhD, RN; Susan Bakewell-Sachs, PhD, RN; Gaurdia Banister, PhD, RN; Suzanne Boyle, DNSc, RN; Janie Canty-Mitchell, PhD, RN; Stephen J. Cavanagh, PhD, MS, MPA, RN; Margaret Flinter, PhD, APRN; Mary Ellen Glasgow,  PhD, RN, ACNS-BC; Mary Lou Manning, PhD, RN, CPNP; Sandra Festa Ryan, MSN, CPNP, FCPP, FAANP; Sharon A. R. Stanley, PhD, RN; and Danuta M. Wojnar, PhD, RN. The Nurse Faculty Scholars are: Robert Atkins, PhD, RN; Jason Farley, PhD, MPH, CRNP; Joachim Voss, PhD, RN; and Shannon Zenk, PhD, MPH, RN.

The American Red Cross awarded two RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows its Florence Nightingale Medal: fellow Sharon Stanley, PhD, RN, and alumna Tener Goodwin Veenema, PhD, MPH, RN, CPNP, FNAP, FAAN. The award is the highest international distinction given to those in nursing and is given to “nurses who distinguish themselves in time of peace or war by their exceptional courage and devotion to victims of a conflict or disaster or exemplary service in the areas of public health or nursing education.”

Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program alumna Deidra Crews, MD, ScM, was named the 2013-2015 Gilbert S. Omenn Anniversary Fellow at the prestigious Institute of Medicine. Among her previous research is a study examining the association between unhealthy diet and kidney disease among low-income individuals.

Timothy Landers, RN, CNP, PhD, is an assistant professor at The Ohio State University and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nurse Faculty Scholar. This post originally appeared on the Ohio State Ethiopia blog.

*Gennit is not her real name but the story is true.  Her mom gave us permission (from the row behind us) to use this story and photo.  Hopefully, this counts as her “What I did over summer vacation” essay when school starts.

I’m sitting on the plane with Gennit, a 13-year old girl who was born in Ethiopia, but now lives in Atlanta with her brother and parents.  Gennit is a nice and articulate 13-year girl, and we chatted during the 13-hour flight about our experiences in Ethiopia.

She had a lot of things to say, and I noticed that she was somewhat soft-spoken making it difficult to hear her at times.  I asked her about my observation that many Ethiopian girls and women speak softly and what she thought about that.

Gennit told me she thought is was more “ladylike” to speak softly and, in Ethiopia, children are taught that it is wrong for a girl to talk loudly.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

A new report that provides the first comprehensive assessment of the nation’s public health nurse workforce finds public health nurses have very high levels of job satisfaction, but concerns about job stability and compensation. The report also finds that public health departments struggle to hire nurses and fill vacancies. Among the outlets to report on the findings: Nurse.com, Fierce Healthcare, and HealthLeaders Media. Read more about the report here and here.

Patients with low socioeconomic status use emergency rooms (ERs) more often than primary care because they perceive ERs to be more convenient, less costly and of better quality, according to a study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholars program alumna Shreya Kangovi, MD. Among the outlets to report on the findings: Kaiser Health News’ Capsules blog, Health Day, and Health Canal. Read more about the study.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn a 2003 federal law that prohibited government-funded clinics from serving sex workers was also a smart public health decision, Celeste Watkins-Hayes, PhD, recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, writes in a blog post for The Atlantic. “These providers grapple with how to keep all populations safe, not just those engaging in legal and socially desirable behavior,” Watkins-Hayes writes. “As a result, the very people who need the most access to HIV preventive and treatment measures may not receive them … [not] allowing them to take a neutral stance that allows them to focus first and foremost on risk reduction … is counterproductive in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.”

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

The dark blue dye used to identify lacerations and tears on the skin of rape victims doesn’t show up as well on dark skin, Phys.org reports, which means injuries that could move cases through the criminal justice system may not be documented. RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholars alumna Kathryn Laughon, PhD, RN, FAAN, is working to create a fluorescent dye that will show up on all skin types. WTVR-TV (Richmond, Va.) and Newsplex.com (Charlottesville, Va.) also report on her work.

The Chicago Tribune [subscription required] reports on a program that is teaching children how to control their asthma, how to recognize common triggers for asthma attacks, and how they can educate their communities about the disease. Ruchi S. Gupta, MD, MPH, an alumna of the RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars program, who spearheaded the asthma education program, said:  “These kids didn't know they had a voice, (that) they could actually use it to make a change… My dream is to have a map of Chicago and you click on a neighborhood and you can see these videos and tools the students have made in each neighborhood.” Central Kentucky News also reported the story. Read a post Gupta wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about her research on food allergies.

“As a profession, we feel passionate about protecting the safety and quality of our patients [by] serving on committees and boards,” RWJF Senior Adviser for Nursing Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, told AMN Healthcare about nurses serving as board members or in other leadership positions. “That means you have to raise your hand and say ‘I’ll do it.’ It’s a time commitment.”

Cindy Anderson, PhD, RN, WHNP-BC, FAHA, FAAN, is a professor and associate dean for research at the College of Nursing & Professional Disciplines, University of North Dakota. A Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Scholar, she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Salem State College, and both a Master of Science degree in parent-child nursing and a PhD in physiology from the University of North Dakota. This is part of a series of posts looking at diversity in the health care workforce.

I was born and raised in the Boston area which we always referred to as the “melting pot.”  My grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe and I grew up hearing stories of the “Old Country” which included both fond memories and atrocities that drove them to leave their homes and find a better way of life in America. As a second-generation American, I have always embraced the common and unique perspectives of others from a variety of backgrounds.

I began my career as an Air Force nurse, advancing my opportunity to engage with others from varied backgrounds and cultures. In the course of my career, I found myself stationed at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. My initial perceptions were based upon the stereotype that North Dakota was a rural, isolated state with little diversity. My misperceptions were quickly reversed when I had a chance to engage with the community. My awareness and respect for the unique diversity of rural North Dakota has steadily grown over the last three decades which I have been fortunate to spend in this great state.