Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1200039
January 13–February 17, 2020 4 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com ON THE QUICK Nursing & Healthcare News For direct links to the websites cited, find these articles at WorkingNurse.com Nurses and Environmental Action Become a "Climate Champion" A re you concerned about the impact environmental threats like climate change will have on health and healthcare? Are you looking to do something about it? The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) can help. From Lead Contamination to Wildfires It's no exaggeration to say that health depends in large part on the state of one's environment. Air pollution, contaminated water and exposure to toxicants like lead can obviously make people very sick. Climate change is also a growing threat to both public health and our healthcare system — for instance, California's recent wildfires have destroyed or threatened vari- ous hospitals and clinics. Environmental health is a big subject and it can be difficult for an individual nurse to know where to even begin. It's also easy to feel powerless in the face of environmental hazards beyond your personal control. However, nurses — being both highly educated and widely trusted — are in a unique position to shape public discourse sur- rounding environmental issues. Helping nurses do that is the mission of the ANHE. Founded over a decade ago, the organiza- tion is a cross-specialty alliance of nurses, nurse midwives and other APRNs dedicated to educating and empowering nurses on environmental health. Getting Involved The ANHE website, envirn.org, offers a variety of resources, rang- ing from a textbook on environmental health issues to reports designed to familiarize you with specific topics like water pollution. Those resources emphasize opportunities for individual nurses to take action, whether it's leaving a public comment on a proposed regulatory change or writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Another opportunity to get involved is the Nurses Climate Challenge, a joint initiative of the ANHE and Health Care Without Harm that is recruiting "Nurse Climate Champions" to help educate other healthcare professionals about the threat climate change poses to human health. To learn more, visit nursesclimatechallenge.org. WN TOO LITTLE SHUT-EYE Study finds sleep deprivation is common for on-shift nurses H ow much sleep do you normally get before a shift? A new study suggests that for many nurses, the answer is, "Not enough." Eighty-Three Minutes Less If you work 12-hour shifts, you probably find that you get less sleep on days you're on-shift than on your days off. How much less? According to a recent study in the journal Sleep Health, nurses average 83 minutes less sleep on days they're scheduled to work than on days they're not. While days off do provide some opportunity to catch up on missed sleep, it isn't usually enough to compensate, especially if you work two or more days in a row. "[A]fter several days of not getting enough sleep, more than one day of 'recovery sleep' — or more than 10 hours in bed — may be needed to return to baseline functioning," explains lead author Amy Witkoski Stimpfel, RN, Ph.D., an assistant professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Patient Safety Risk Going into work with a mounting sleep deficit is unpleasant, and it can also be unsafe. The study correlated nurses' sleep with standardized quality measures and found that sleep deficits translated into poorer quality of care. RNs' lack of sleep also had a negative impact on patient safety. The reasons aren't hard to grasp: Being short on sleep impairs your judgment, reduces your ability to manage stress and makes it hard- er to cope with complex challenges. "It is in everyone's interest to have nurses well-rested so they can perform their critical function within the health- care system and keep patients safe," says coauthor Christine Kovner, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, Mathey Mezey Professor of Geriatric Nursing at NYU Meyers. To read the study, "Nurses' Sleep, Work Hours, and Patient Care Quality, and Safety," visit sleephealthjournal.org. WN Recovery sleep is essential