A partnership of a Catholic faith-based health system, nursing and traditional American Indian medicine practitioners.

The paper presents a historically unique partnership between an American Southwestern, Catholic faith-based, urban hospital and a program it sponsored on the spirituality of American Indian Traditional Indian Medicine (TIM) by a Comanche medicine man. A discussion is offered on the cultural partnerships, experiences and benefits achieved through the cultural accommodations of these spiritual beliefs and practices within this healthcare system. The theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality (Culture Care Theory), including the Sunrise Enabler, is applied in discussion of these past experiences to explore the relationships among and between the participating cultures. The intent of the partnerships within this program was not to 'learn Indian healing ceremonies' but to share the philosophy of TIM with all people (clients and professionals) as a means to enhance their own way of living. Examples of actual nursing decisions and actions are provided including outcomes from the program within the healthcare system and globally.

Experiences of expert nurses in caring for patients with postoperative pain.

Despite enormous technologic advances and substantial research in the area of pain management in recent years, numerous studies indicate that postoperative pain is not relieved in most patients. Nurses are the health care professionals who spend the most time with patients in pain. Despite this, there is a lack of research that has sought to understand the experiences of nurses, the professionals most closely tied to this issue. The purpose of this pilot qualitative study was to learn how expert nurses assess, manage, and care for patients with postoperative pain. A phenomenologic mode of inquiry was used to interview three expert nurse participants. Four themes emerged during the data analysis phase: considering the whole person, the independent art of nursing, accepting what the patient says, and commitment to surgical nursing.

An ethnonursing research study: adults residing in a midwestern Christian philosophy urban homeless shelter.

The ethnonursing study's purpose was to explore the subculture of homeless adults residing in one shelter, with discovery of their meanings and experiences of care, or lack of care. Leininger's theory of culture care was used to identify, analyze, and discuss the cultural care patterns. The findings included themes that were identified in two categories: two themes before shelter residence (no caring practices in their lives) and two themes during shelter residence (acceptance and hope). Ethnonursing discovery contributes to nurses' knowledge about who the homeless people are and why they are homeless and develops culturally congruent care practices.

Seniors' need for and use of Medicare home health services.

This study examined: (a) nature and extent of seniors' need for care both at time of admission to and discharge from Medicare home health services, and (b) relationships among admission need, service utilization, need at discharge, and discharge disposition for one episode of home care services. The sample of 195 was stratified by home health discharge disposition: (a) acute group, (b) chronic group, and (c) stable home group. Two classification systems were used to access the seniors' level of need, the mandated Medicare case-mix system (CMS) and a holistic intensity of need system. Findings show that there were no differences in services received by the three groups, that discharge did not mean seniors' need for home care services had been eliminated or reduced, and that caregiver support impacts seniors' need for home care.