Wednesday | April 5, 2023

Healthcare starts with you. This is your beat.

Good Morning readers!

One thing I love about nursing is how versatile your nursing license can be. You can work bedside, administration, business, pharma, and more. Nurses also make some pretty impressive entrepreneurs! Tonight, The Nursing Beat and Oath Care, another nurse-founded company, are co-hosting our first-ever Nurses in Tech Dinner Summit in San Francisco. We are bringing together some powerhouse nurses from across the Bay Area to discuss our experiences in the digital health space and how we are working to improve our healthcare ecosystem, one nurse-led company at a time. Are you a nurse in tech? Tell us, where should we host our next dinner summit here?

Stay curious!

Hannah B. (aka Nurse Hans)

Chief Ops Guru

MORNING BRIEF 🍳 ☕️

Oregon Safe Staffing Bill Inches Closer to Reality

After weeks of heated negotiations between Oregon nursing unions and the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, the state has reached a compromise bill that would overhaul its nurse staffing law. If passed, the bill would allow hospitals to assign an average of four patients per emergency department nurse per shift, with a hard maximum of five patients per nurse. 

However, ED nurses working with trauma patients can only be assigned one patient at a time. Psychiatric nurses would also have a hard maximum of five patients per nurse per shift. Certified nursing assistants, on the other hand, will have a 7:1 patient-to-nurse ratio for day shifts and 11:1 for night shifts. Hospitals, in turn, would get support from the nursing unions on several of the hospital group’s bills. 

NYT: Despite Arguments to the Contrary, Abortion Pills Are Safe

Anti-abortion proponents across the country are debating the safety of abortion pills as a Texas judge considers a decision on the issue that would affect pregnant women nationwide. Despite these concerns, however, study after study shows mifepristone is a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy, according to an extensive review by theNew York Times. 

The NYT reviewed 101 studies that spanned 26 countries and 30 years, covering more than 124,000 abortions in the first trimester. In 86 of the studies, almost no patients had any serious complications. Overall, the rate of serious complications for medication abortion is just 0.31%, compared with 1.4% for childbirth (and 0.16% for procedural abortion). Moreover, from 2000 to 2022, approximately 5.6 women in the US took the pills, and just 28 women died (0.0005%), according to the Food and Drug Administration.

California Nurses Protest Hospital’s Plan to Shutter Reproductive Health Services

Registered nurses at Tri-City Medical Center in California protested outside the hospital to demand it keep providing public women’s and reproductive health services. The hospital’s Board of Directors recently began re-evaluating the department’s financial viability in response to a decline in referrals of pregnant patients to Tri-City. The department includes neonatal intensive care, labor and delivery, and postpartum units. Tri-City’s interim CEO told the board the department sees less than one birth a day, partly due to staffing shortages. 

Aside from shutting down the services altogether, the board is weighing several other options, including taking no action, cutting staff, consolidating units, and pursuing outside partnerships. The nurses in the department argue that mere minutes can make a difference in babies’ and mothers’ lives and that closing the department could force pregnant mothers to travel farther for care.

COMMUNITY PICKS 🌼 

Breakfast on the go? Only time for a protein shake at lunch? Check out this portable blender that is compact enough to fit in your locker yet powerful enough to crush ice!

☕️ THE BREAK ROOM powered by

Six Affirmations for People Pleasers

First, you aren’t alone; pleasing people is super common! It becomes an issue when it spirals us into overworking, over-commitment, and self-sacrifice mode, fueling burnout and resentment. At its root, it is not about making people happy; it’s about you not feeling comfortable feeling uncomfortable (Read that again…)

Here are a few affirmations you can try on for size when you feel the people-pleasing kicking in:

⚡I acknowledge and honor my limits

⚡I am not responsible for the feelings of anyone other than myself

⚡I will no longer go above and beyond for people who do not care about me

⚡I live for myself, not to fulfill others’ expectations and desires

⚡I can’t take care of others unless I care for myself first

⚡I do not require the approval of others to live a meaningful, successful life

If you find affirmations and journaling helpful, I encourage you to join the Self Care Catalyst Journal and Affirmation Club, where you will get mind-blowing shifts in your inbox every Monday!

DAILY DIVERSION 💊

Some 39 years ago — long before diversity, equity, and inclusion training became common — several dozen employees at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale, California, underwent Passover sensitivity training. At the time, most of the home’s employees were not Jewish and the training was “vital” to understanding the meaning of Passover. Learn more in this 1984 New York Times article.

🤯 ONE BIG NUMBER

Thanks for reading! 🤓