With the COVID-19 pandemic surging, healthcare organizations are tasked with the ongoing challenge of providing sufficient testing for their communities. Lawrence General Hospital (Lawrence, MA) is located in one of the hardest hit cities in Massachusetts with over 8,400 positive cases. As a leading healthcare provider in the region, their staff put together a plan to implement drive-thru testing that now tests over 1,400 patients per day and provides a model for other organizations to follow.

For many of us in healthcare, living through this time of crisis has been an experience like no other. This is especially true for nurses and nurse informaticists, who are providing so much clinical, technological, and emotional support for care teams as well as their communities. The Year of the Nurse has been quite a year. We need your light now more than ever.

There has been a lot of talk about heroes lately, and rightfully so. 

Over the past several weeks I’ve been seeing signs around the neighborhood, made by children, thanking our healthcare heroes: hand-drawn rainbow art taped to front doors and living room windows. It got me thinking about what our childhood heroes looked like before this crisis. Ordinary people with extraordinary powers, anonymously protecting the defenseless. Sports teams that never give up, even when they fall behind. Our moms and dads, looking out for us and putting our needs before their own. Do they remind you of anyone?

In order to build healthier communities and improve population health management, providers need information about a patients’ health that goes beyond clinical factors. 

How can we achieve this? 

Among the many tasks that nurses face, one of the most challenging — and rewarding — is supporting mothers through childbirth. 

Because labor and delivery can be unpredictable, requiring nurses to monitor and interpret lots of data while managing their patients safely, it’s critical that they have all the information they need to make the right clinical decisions.

It’s been almost 70 years since the idea of publicly recognizing nurses was first discussed — and while healthcare has undergone huge changes in nearly seven decades, the fact remains that nurses continue to serve one of the most critical roles in delivering patient care.

 As nurses, we understand that our role continues to evolve within healthcare as a whole — and the tools that nurses use in delivering care are also changing.

That’s why this year, we’ll be hosting and attending several events aimed at exploring new innovations that help nurses in their critical role of making the safest, most appropriate decisions for their patients. One of the most exciting advances in health IT is the ongoing development of technology that assists clinical decision-making and engages patients in their care.

When I think about how far we've come with providing care across the entire care continuum, it reminds me of one of my favorite documentaries, Remaking American Medicine. 

One of the patients this PBS series introduces is a woman with multiple chronic diseases. It's clear how important her community is, in making sure that she and her many caregivers are all on the same page.

It goes without saying that nurses are busy. Caring for patients and keeping up with documentation (amidst their many other clinical responsibilities) takes up the majority of their time and resources. However, there are tools that nurses should add to their arsenal, that won’t take more time out of their day, but rather, give time back to them.