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May 23

ANS online and on paper: is there a difference?


By now ANS readers are familiar with accessing articles online, either through the ANS web site, or the electronic collection provided by their organization’s library.  The data on usage clearly documents the overwhelming preference that readers have for journal content online.  Since all of the journal content is accessible online, you may not be aware thatLaptops and paper books some of the content of the journal appears only online, and not in ANS on paper!  Regardless of the format on paper or online-only, all articles that appear in ANS have undergone the exact same peer-review scrutiny, and meet the scholarly criteria established for publication in ANS. All articles have also been revised to address issues and suggestions offered by the reviewers, adding substantially to the quality of what you read.

We began including online-only content about 3 years ago.  This has been a tremendous value for the journal, as well as for the discipline.  When a journal is limited to paper only, the result can be a huge back-log of excellent material with long periods of time between submission and actual publication, or a severe limitation in what can be published by the journal, dictated not by Read more

May 16

1 Comment

April-June issue now available – Practice-Based Evidence


This is a terrific issue of ANS that you will not want to miss!  The Table of Contents is on the ANS web site, where you can go directly to details about each article.  This issue focuses on the topic “Practice-Based Evidence” but also features commentaries about two previously published articles that raised quite a bit of reader response!  These commentaries are available as free downloads in the “Featured Articles” section of the Home Page.

Here is some background on the commentaries.  The article by David Keepnews titled Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health Issues and Nursing: Moving Toward an Agenda is a thoughtful response to the article published last fall in ANS 33:3.  That article, titled Nursing’s Silence on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues: The Need for Emancipatory Efforts is based on an analysis by Eliason, Dibble and DeJoseph examining content in nurse journals with high impact-factor scores.  Their analysis revealed Read more

May 4

1 Comment

Nurse scholars shape the future – funding opportunities pending


The groundbreaking report release last fall by the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the Future of Nursing.  This report provides a blueprint for action to shape a stronger, more effective nursing presence in health care.   It also opens doors of opportunity for nurse scholars. Nurse researchers played a key role in shaping the substance of the report, and in the months ahead, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will publish a national research agenda based on the report’s recommendations.  You can sign up for alerts on funding opportunities related to this agenda at www.rwjf.org.

I recently invited Lori Melichar and Susan B. Hassmiller to share their thoughts about the role of nurse scholars in fulfilling to vision of the future that the report sets forth.
Here is their message for the ANS blog:

Nurse researchers played a crucial role in producing the evidence that resulted in the recommendations from the landmark Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.  Now they must play Read more

Apr 29

1 Comment

Attention to detail


“Your great attention to detail is both a blessing and a curse”  – Chinese proverb

This message, found in a fortune cookie, inspired the folks at Oxford University Press (the Pencil and question markpublishers of the AMA Manual of Style, used by ANS), to start a blog!  The blog is the AMA Style Insider, and I highly recommend it – even for those who are not blessed with great attention to detail!  It is free of charge and anyone can visit the blog — I recommend that you subscribe to stay informed of many important issues facing writers, editors and publishers.  As they note in the announcement that circulated about the new blog, even though the AMA Manual of Style is over 1000 pages long, there are endless issues and questions that come up for writers every day.  And, the issues they address are not limited to any one approach to “style” – in fact they refer to other style manuals and traditions besides their own.

So far there are only a handful of posts on the blog, but every one of them is interesting!  They deal with topics ranging from recent FAQ’s from users of the AMA Manual of Style, to word usage (heathy vs healthful for example), placement of an apostrophe, the dangers of duplicate e-publication, and much more!  And, the information addresses not just the “facts” of how to handle problems of style, spelling, grammar, usage, and so forth, but the issues surrounding the problems and various points of view about how to deal with the issue in your own work.

Apr 28

New paper in Journal of Healthcare Risk Management


Just had my latest paper published in the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management:

Cox, T. (2011), Exposing the true risks of capitation financed healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Risk Management, 30: 34–41. doi: 10.1002/jhrm.20066

The key points:

Small insurers are inefficient insurers: They have lower probabilities of achieving modest profit goals, higher probabilities of incurring operating losses, and higher probabilities of Insurance "not allowed"insolvency than larger insurers when both randomly select policyholders from the same populations.

Small insurers also have to cut benefits to match larger insurer’s probabilities of achieving modest profit goals, avoiding operating losses, and avoiding insolvency.

Despite this, and the obvious impact it has on service quality and quantity, almost every proposal for trimming health care costs assumes Read more

Apr 17

The Importance of Letters to the Editor


Letters to the Editor are vital in achieving a primary purpose established early in the history of Advances in Nursing Science.  The current issue (Vol. 34:1) contains two letters in response to the article titled “The Politics of Nursing Knowledge and LettersEducation: Critical Pedagogy in the Face of the Militarization of Nursing in the War on Terror.” (Vol. 33:3).  The letters in response to this article are free downloads from the ANS web site.

These letters prompted lively discussion at our annual Advisory Board meeting (November, 2010), and the Board recommended that we invite external reviews of the issues that were raised in the Read more

Apr 8

1 Comment

Disaster preparedness


The Washington Post had a story yesterday that should raise some concerns, for a day or two:  “US Health Care System Unprepared for Major Nuclear Emergency, Officials Say”Disaster Relief

As I suggested in another post, it is difficult, if not impossible to be prepared for a catastrophe when our health care facilities are barely handling routine loads.

Disaster preparedness requires tremendous redundancies: Extra staff, extra supplies, extra equipment, extra medications, extra food, and alternative energy sources. Read more

Apr 7

12 Comments

The “Cs” of Scholarship


Several years ago I created a kind of template to use in talking about some of the mysteries of good scholarship.  The handout I used made its way around the world and with some regularity I received requests for copies of the handout!  So in mythe letter C Editorial in ANS Vol 22, No 2, I published a version of this handout.  With permission of our publisher, I am presenting this once again here, along with yet another pair of “C’s”!

The “C’s” in this list represent contrasting traits that we seek in the best of scholarship.  Some of the pairs seem like contradictions, but in fact, they have a Read more

Mar 26

Regulating Medical Loss Ratios


I was just thinking about a new paper in the American Journal of Managed Care:

—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Regulating the Medical Loss Ratio: Implications for the Individual Market
Jean M. Abraham, PhD; and Pinar Karaca-Mandic, PhD
(Am J Manag Care. 2011;17(3):211-218)

“Results:In 2009, using a PPACA-adjusted MLR definition, we estimated that 29% of insurer-state observations in the individual market would have MLRs below the 80% minimum, corresponding to 32% of total enrollment. Nine states would have at least one-half of their health insurers below the threshold. If insurers below the MLR threshold exit the market, major coverage disruption could occur for those in poor health; we estimated the range to be between 104,624 and 158,736 member-years.”Conclusion: The introduction of MLR regulation as part of the PPACA has the potential to significantly affect the functioning of the individual market for health insurance.”————————————————————————————————————————

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation thought enough of it to post it on their website and I did a post over there

http://www.rwjf.org/coverage/product.jsp?id=72089&cid=XEM_910232#disqus_thread

but sometimes they don’t like them, so I’ll edit it and redo it here because I think Read more

Mar 24

Follow Featured Articles – free downloads!


Every couple of weeks, we feature one or two articles on the ANS Web Site, and while they are featured, you can download them for free. The featured articles are from the latest issue of the journal, so check the web site often and follow the very latest!

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