Looking For Resources

[Q.]

I've recently been assigned responsibility for publishing our Education Department's monthly newsletter that goes out to all clinical staff. The newsletter is meant to be interdisplinary, with articles/information for ALL disciplines: nursing, pharmacy, RT and PT. Being a former L&D nurse, you can see how this may be a challenge to me. Does anyone have any websites they access that contains information that I could use to help write these articles, such as practice updates, etc?

Thanks.

[masny]

My department does the newsletter for our facility and we have a great response. Here are the columns that we write each month:

A note from the CEO (Front Page)

What's Hot - Something new in medicine or research, etc

Behind the sceens - Give a snap shot of support departments in

the hospital like Central Supply, Physician Credentials,

Biomed,etc.

From the Past - Something about health care in history.

In Focus - A nursing clinical reveiw of a disease or nursing

process.

In Touch with the Joint Commission - JCAHO news and updates

Med Notes - Review of a new medication or safety tips.

Life Safety News - More JCHAO stuff

PI Corner - Who and what is being improved, great projects, etc.

Stress Column - Tips on managing stress

The Bottom Line - $$$ and Healthcare, cost of care, etc.

Caught in the Act - notes sent to us by fellow co-workers when

they "catch" someone doing a great job above what is

required.

News you can Use - Hospital Announcements

Pencil this in is our Education Calendar.

We do a cross word insert that they can turn in for education credit and a guess who contest each month. We put some information in about a fellow co-worker and they try to guess who it is. It is great fun and has people out talking to each other, building teamwork, etc.

Hope this helps. I will tell you that it is very time consuming to do this kind of newsletter, we (four of us) divide the topics up and research each month, write and edit all ourselves. We do most of our research on the internet. The FDA web site is helpful, the IOM web site, the JCHAO site and I go to the news channels for what is currently being reserached. (CNN, CBS, etc) I can almost always get ideas there.

Good luck - it is fun and a great learning experience.