Synopsis

A student favorite for its easy-to-read style, real-life applications, and humorous cartoons, Nursing Today: Transition and Trends, 7th Edition helps you make a successful transition from student to practicing nurse. It covers the profession's leading issues and opportunities, ensuring that you graduate not only with patient care skills but with career development skills including resume writing, finding a job, and effective interviewing. Test-taking tips and strategies prepare you for the NCLEX-RN^® exam, and discussions of communication and management issues prepare you to succeed in the workplace. In this edition, well-known educator JoAnn Zerwekh and coauthor Ashley Zerwekh Garneau provide the latest information on nursing issues and trends including health care reform, patient safety, collective bargaining, and emergency preparedness.

• Thorough coverage prepares you for a professional nursing career by including all of the most important issues faced by the new nurse.


• An engaging presentation features lively cartoons, chapter objectives, bibliographies, and colorful summary boxes.


• Critical Thinking boxes are located in every chapter, with relevant questions and exercises to apply what you have learned to clinical practice.


• Evidence-Based Practice boxes focus on the research evidence that supports clinical practice.


• Real-life scenarios in each chapter illustrate and personalize the chapter topics.


• An emphasis on making the transition into the workplace is included in chapters such as NCLEX-RN and the New Graduate, Employment Considerations: Opportunities, Resumes, and Interviewing, and Mentoring and Preceptorship.


• A companion Evolve website includes Case Studies for every chapter, test-taking strategies, a sample NCLEX test tutorial, a sample NCLEX exam, appendices, and resume builder templates for creating professional resumes and cover letters.

• Health care reform is covered in the Economics of the Health Care Delivery System chapter, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the new Patient Bill of Rights as they apply to health care delivery and cost.


• Updated Health Care Organization and Patterns of Nursing Care Delivery chapter covers the results of managed care and explains the "p4p" (pay for performance) payment system, eliminating payment for medical errors as urged by the Institute of Medicine, and the collaboration at all levels of care to prevent medical errors and improve quality of care.


• A chapter on collective bargaining and unions covers the creation in 2009 of the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses, the National Nurses United (NNU), and related issues.


• Updated Emergency Preparedness chapter covers The World Health Organization's (WHO) global pandemic influenza plan and its relation to public health and immunization.


• Coverage of QSEN and Patient Safety includes not only Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, but also the National Patient Safety Foundation and the Institute of Medicine competencies related to patient safety, as well as better communication among health care providers, quality improvement, and guidelines from The Joint Commission.


• Coverage of evidence-based practice includes management protocols and interventions used as the basis for clinical outcomes.

Betsy Frank

This book is the third edition of a popular issues and trends text. The editors have revised and updated the chapters and added several new chapters -- ""Health in the Community: Nursing's Role"" and ""Alternative and Complementary Health Care."" In response to the demand for more management content, the editors include a chapter entitled ""Group Process and Team Building."" The editors state that the purpose is to help the student who is about to graduate become aware of the transition process involved in coping with the realities of a rapidly changing practice environment. The text is for use in the typical transition course offered in the senior or final year of a pre-licensure registered nurse program. Certainly such a text is needed to help students prepare for their entrance into the practice arena. The primary audience is students in Associate Degree, Diploma, or Baccalaureate programs who are in the final phases of their educational careers. The editors provide an overview of many topics, and this book could also be used as a reference for the new graduate who is faced with a multiplicity of transition issues. However, an in-depth study of any one issue would require further reading in other sources such as journal articles or other texts. The conversational writing style makes this book exceptionally easy to read. Important points are highlighted and thoughtful questions and exercises are included. Cartoons add a humorous approach to illustrating the content. The Internet references provide on-line sites for further exploration of issues, and the web site, when activated, will provide faculty with frequent updates of content. Currently, faculty receive updates via asemi-annual newsletter. This updated text will be quite useful in transitions/issues and trends courses for pre-licensure students.

Biography

Executive Director, Nursing Education Consultants, Ingram, TX

Executive Director, Nursing Education Consultants, Ingram, TX; Nursing Faculty - Online Campus, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ