Better together: Coalitions committed to advancing health equity.

The Future of Nursing 2020-2030 report identifies coalitions as a driving force for advancing health equity. Five coalitions provided insight into their accomplishments, lessons learned, and role in advancing health equity. The exemplar coalitions included Latinx Advocacy Team and Interdisciplinary Network for COVID-19, Black Coalition Against COVID, Camden Coalition, National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations, and The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. While all exemplar coalitions, credited relationship building and partnerships to their success, they used unique strategies for striving to meet their populations' needs, whether the needs arose from COVID-19, racial and/or ethnic disparities, socioeconomic disparities, or other barriers to health. Research and policy implications for coalitions are discussed. Nurses play a critical role in every highlighted coalition and in the national effort to make health and health care more equitable.

Building a nursing legacy.

ABSTRACT: A nurse's legacy can be defined in multiple ways. This article describes a project based on a qualitative research study that focused on legacy building in nursing.

A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for Nurse Scheduling Problem considering the Fatigue Factor.

Nowadays and due to the pandemic of COVID-19, nurses are working under the highest pressure benevolently all over the world. This urgent situation can cause more fatigue for nurses who are responsible for taking care of COVID-19 patients 24 hours a day. Therefore, nurse scheduling should be modified with respect to this new situation. The purpose of the present research is to propose a new mathematical model for Nurse Scheduling Problem (NSP) considering the fatigue factor. To solve the proposed model, a hybrid Genetic Algorithm (GA) has been developed to provide a nurse schedule for all three shifts of a day. To validate the proposed approach, a randomly generated problem has been solved. In addition, to show the applicability of the proposed approach in real situations, the model has been solved for a real case study, a department in one of the hospitals in Esfahan, Iran, where COVID-19 patients are hospitalized. Consequently, a nurse schedule for May has been provided applying the proposed model, and the results approve its superiority in comparison with the manual schedule that is currently used in the department. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first study in which the proposed model takes the fatigue of nurses into account and provides a schedule based on it.

Compassionate leadership: how to support your team when fixing the problem seems impossible.

Stress, suboptimal mental health and an inadequate work-life balance are underlying and serious issues in the nursing profession, affecting staff recruitment and retention and potentially having a detrimental effect on patient care. While compassion towards patients is central to the nursing role, often 'compassion towards the compassionate' is lacking. The need for compassion is even more important now, and in the months ahead, due to the additional stressors experienced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether they are on the front line, furloughed or shielding. This article includes reflections from nursing staff and uses their stories to encourage reflection on ethical and moral dilemmas experienced during the pandemic. The Compassion in the Workplace model is suggested as a tool that can be used by nurse managers to examine their compassion levels and to support the development of a compassionate workplace. In addition, this article offers some practical ideas on what compassionate leadership might look like in day-to-day practice.

Addressing health inequities re-illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic: How can nursing respond?

The coronavirus disease 2019 mortality rate among Black adults in the U.S. is double that of other racial and ethnic groups. The current pandemic is re-illuminating health inequities that are pervasive in our society and reflected in our health system. This creative controversy describes critical conversations needed within nursing to acknowledge the contribution of structural racism to health equity. We recommend implementing structural competency into nursing education and prioritizing nursing research and policies focused on health equity and community-based interventions.

Leveraging momentum of 2020-Reflections from an International Conference.

PURPOSE: This Commentary illustrates how innovative clinical and research initiatives highlight the ingenuity and creativity of nursing and midwifery professions thus leveraging the momentum of 2020 that commenced with the Year of the Nurse and Midwife and the Nursing Now Challenge. BACKGROUND: Speakers demonstrated through vision, creativity and policy generation how the world is now in a different place due to COVID-19 and how the global crisis will change and shape the future of health care delivery. EVALUATION: Speakers were invited because of their reputation as international leaders in global health and population. Participants evaluated content and its relevance to research, education and practice in group discussions. KEY ISSUES: The current global crisis determines that the capabilities and capacity of nurses and midwives will become more crucial than ever to the delivery of universal health coverage (UHC) and population health by 2030. CONCLUSIONS: Global leaders and policymakers must seek the knowledge and skills they need to support their work during a global crisis. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Achieving population health and equitable access to health care is dependent on an adequate health workforce.

[A cultural meta-analysis for post Covid-19 times]. / Una metanalisi culturale per i tempi di post Covid-19.

A cultural meta-analysis for post Covid-19 times. The professional and human experience of the still ongoing emergency which has transformed the structure itself of the lives of world countries has generated a very large and fragmented spectrum of mainly descriptive and narrative publications (from inside the professions involved, as well as on the impact of the pandemia on the society) which defy any tentative of comprehensive understanding. This contribution proposes the results of an unusual, possibly provocative, metanalytic approach adapted to assess the existence, if any, of general evidences which could be assumed as a take home message of the heterogeneous, highly rich, mainly qualitative materials which have been produced so far: on the care aspects of the pandemia as well as on its more general significance for and impact on the society. The predefined biases and limitations of this approach (defined as cultural, i.e.which tries to provide an overall picture beyond the details) are declared to introduce and justify the outcome results of the exercise: a series of keywords is presented and commented as a guide into the future of a nursing profession ready and willing to have a more autonomous and innovative professional identity in the health care scenario and in the society.

Communication in health work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Report on communication and qualified listening in nursing work in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: This descriptive, theoretical and reflexive report was developed by nurses between March 20th and May 25th 2020 at Emergency Care Services in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Health communication served as the theoretical background for this research. RESULTS: Two main thematic categories were highlighted: (i) Resignifications of communication in the work relationships of the health team and (ii) Guided listening to users by nurses at the Emergency Care Services during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: The experience revealed an excerpt of what is found under the conditions of the current situation resulting from COVID-19. Communication turned into an essential tool to maintain professional relationships and culminate in collaboration and cooperation of the team in order to provide a close relationship with the user and promote the quality of health care processes.

[The covid-19 emergency in the words of the nurses]. / L'emergenza covid-19 nelle parole degli infermieri 1. Cosa è cambiato nel modo di lavorare 2. Essere preparati all'emergenza 3. Lavorare in team 4. La solitudine e l'isolamento dei pazienti 5. La solitudine degli infermieri 6. Le scelte difficili 7. L'organizzazione del lavoro e dei reparti 8. Cosa cambierà dopo il covid-19.

. The covid-19 emergency in the words of the nurses . This special issue of AIR is dedicated to the direct professional experiences and personal testimonies of a sample of the nursing personnel during the most dramatic phase of the covid-19 pandemia in the most severely affected regions of Northern Italy (Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Friuli, Trentino, Emilia Romagna Regions). The decision to adopt a research strategy aimed to give visibility and voice to colleagues representing some of the key hospitals of the regions obliged to a radical reorganisation of their structures and organisation of care, was adopted to catch from inside the crisis scenarios the expected mix of intense emotions (from anxiety, to fatigue, to personal and professional uncertainty, to the burden of impotence), and of needed technical creativity and efficiency which were requested to face a totally unexpected situation where guidelines could hardly be of help. The interview/diaries/focus groups were carefully planned not so much in terms of the contents, but with attention to the acceptance of the interviewed to enter in a free dialogue, with no Q&A, to be recorded, and to last for the time felt to be by both sides appropriate. The texts which are reported in this dossier are fragments of the recordings (overall more then 30 hours), without adjustments. It has been agreed that while all the names of the participants are provided as 'authors', the individual contributions are anonymous (not out of privacy consideration!) as they are part of a collective narrative, which reflects the great variability of the languages and of the perceived-expressed experiences and memories. The material has been organised in sections which are conceived as 'verbal snapshots' taken from the networks of care settings, but at the same time of the places and houses where the colleagues were literally full-time living, to assure unaccountable overtime working hours, and the requested 'safety distances' and lockdowns. The titles of the 8 sections coincide somehow with the principal components of the chain of activities and challenges which had to be faced: The changes in everyday's care, How to be prepared to the emergency, The teamwork, The loneliness and the isolation of the patients, The loneliness of the nurses, The difficult choices, The organization of the work and of the wards, change after covid-19. The core of the dossier is framed by boxes which provide also a minimum background of the administrative and epidemiological data on the pandemia in the regions of interest (it is interesting to remind that the central-southern areas of Italy have been far less affected), and a brief concluding reflection on reflection on the post-pandemia from the nursing point of view.