Letter From the President
The 2010 report of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the Future of Nursing outlines numerous challenges for nursing professionals and for the nursing profession. This important report challenges each of us to practice to the full extent of our education and training; to achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression; to become full partners, with physicians and other healthcare professionals, in redesigning healthcare in the United States; and to design and support effective work force planning and policies to provide better data collection via improved information infrastructure.*
As your president for 2013-2014, my goal is to further align PCNA policies, programs, and priorities with those of the IOM. During the past 21 years, PCNA has accomplished significant achievements and has established itself as the premier organization of nursing professionals dedicated to the prevention of cardiac and other vascular diseases throughout the life span. This has been accomplished through our collective efforts in patient and professional education; advocacy; active participation in clinical practice guideline development; programs that increase awareness of the importance of nursing in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD); and partnering with international associations, such as the World Heart Federation and the European Society of Cardiology. All of these efforts support our strategic goals and those of the IOM.
Our membership, 2,900 and growing, represents nurses and advanced practice nurses from hospitals, cardiac rehabilitation programs, clinics, academic institutions, home health, academic research, and public health and many other healthcare professionals. PCNA, through our valued affiliations with more than 30 other professional organizations, reaches thousands of healthcare professionals with our educational materials and programs. We do make a difference.
Building on our past achievements, together, we can continue to make a difference. Together, we can design and produce new educational programs and products and be the voice for "CVD prevention and nursing." Together, we can make a difference at our place of employment and at local, state, national, and international venues by actively participating in the development of healthcare policies supporting lifestyle and medical therapies for CVD. Together, we can make a difference by supporting nursing research and publications.
I encourage each of you to join PCNA on our webinars, at our regional and chapter meetings, and at our preeminent annual symposium. I urge you to publish your research and clinical papers in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing (JCN). JCN is recognized internationally for its excellence and broad coverage of important cardiovascular topics. I invite each of you to let PCNA know if there are educational programs or products you would like to see developed-especially if you would like to be involved in this process! Let us know about amazing speakers on relevant topics you have heard and who you think would resonate with all of us at PCNA. Let us know how we can improve our communication with you and how we can better serve your patients and your community. Join us on Twitter and Facebook [horizontal ellipsis] let us know about your successes and challenges. Help us make PCNA a better organization that is responsive to the ever-changing world of cardiovascular disease prevention and management.
I look forward to hearing your ideas and suggestions, questions, and comments. Together, we can reduce death and disability from CVD for ourselves, our families, and our communities. The IOM Report on Nursing summarized a key finding of their research, which, I believe, is PCNA's "Call to Action" for 2013-2014.
"The United States has the opportunity to transform its health care system, and nurses can and should play a fundamental role in this transformation."*
We're Live From the PCNA 19th Annual Symposium!
Connect With Us Online
From May 2 to 4, hundreds of nurses and other health care providers will gather at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel for new, innovative programming from world-renowned speakers and 3 days of networking at the 2013 PCNA 19th Annual Symposium. PCNA makes it easy for attendees and other healthcare professionals to share and collaborate during the symposium with colleagues on site or back home through engagement via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Connect with attendees, stay up-to-date on activities, get behind-the-scenes interviews from speakers, and read in-depth reports by following PCNA on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/heartnurses or Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/heartnurses. Whether you are on site or at home, you will get instant access to recaps of sessions and abstracts, video interviews, news from exhibitors, photos, and in-depth discussions with attendees and colleagues.
Plus, if you are not attending the symposium, watch sessions live on pcna.net on Saturday, May 4. Watch 4 new, innovative programs streamed live from general session at the PCNA 19th Annual Symposium including Palliative Care for the CVD Patient: When the Goal is Care-Not Cure presented by Patricia M. Davidson, RN, BA, Med, PhD, from the University of Technology Sydney; One Size Does Not Fit All: How Sociocultural Factors Impact Preventive Strategies presented by Eileen Stuart-Shor, PhD, ANP-BC, FAHA, FAAN, from the University of Massachusetts Boston; and Sex Matters: Insights From WISE presented by Noel Bairey Merz, MD, FACC, FAHA, from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
To register for the PCNA 19th Annual Symposium streamed event, visit pcna.net/symposium.
A Heart-Healthy Toolbox: Lifestyle Change Tools for Health Care Professionals & Their Patients
PCNA is proud to launch a new compilation of resources to support heart-healthy lifestyle education for adult patients in both the cardiology and primary care settings.
PCNA recognizes the critical roles that healthy nutrition, physical activity and exercise, avoidance of tobacco, and successful management of stress play in cardiovascular health. We also recognize the challenge of communicating evidence-based information and, more importantly, coaching patients with behavior change-in the space of a brief clinical encounter. We hope that these printed tools will amplify your efforts.
Download free printable forms about the following:
* 1. Professional Resources: Tools for clinicians
* 2. Healthy-Eating Resources: Information for patients about diet and nutrition
* 3. Exercise and Physical Activity Resources: Tools to support the incorporation of both exercise and physical activity into a healthy lifestyle
* 4. Total Health: Miscellaneous tools-including the role of sleep, stress management, and tobacco avoidance
These tools can be downloaded at http://www.pcna.net/toolbox.
A list of professional resources used in compiling this collection is included, as well as a list of web resources for patients. We hope that this tool box will become a well-used resource. We look forward to hearing how you are using this with your patients.
National High Blood Pressure Education Month
May is National High Blood Pressure Education Month, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A Vital Signs report released by the CDC in September 2012 indicated that one-third of American adults have high blood pressure (HBP) and more than 50% are not controlled. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected from 2003 to 2010 estimate that 67 million have HBP, 53 million are aware of having this condition, 47 million are treated, and only 31 million are controlled. We know that when blood pressure is high (>140 mm Hg systolic and/or >90 mm Hg diastolic), an individual is 3 times more likely to die of heart disease and 4 times more likely to die of a stroke. In addition, HBP is a major risk factor of congestive heart failure and kidney disease. To improve HBP control, the CDC recommends that all healthcare providers check and address blood pressure at every visit, simplify treatment with once-a-day dosing of medicine or fewer pills, and work in a team-based approach that tracks performance. For more information on the CDC recommendations, visit http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/hypertension.
The NHLBI Web site at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov provides guidelines for treatment of HBP with slide sets, quick reference cards, and full reports (ie, The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure or the JNC 7). In addition, guidelines in development, such as the JNC 8, may be tracked for their release dates. The NHLBI also has a public Web site with links to educational booklets such as Your Guide to Lowering High Blood Pressure and Your Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure With DASH. The DASH eating plan (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) promotes greater intake of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and heart healthy choices that are lower in sodium. The CDC reports that Americans consume, on average, 3300 mg of sodium per day and that most of it comes from 10 types of foods, especially bread, cold cuts, pizza, and poultry (http://www.cdc.gov/Features/HighBloodPressure/). Decreasing average sodium intake to even 2300 mg per day could reduce HBP cases by 11 million and save the United States 18 billion dollars annually (http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm).
Similarly, the American Heart Association (AHA) advocated for reduced sodium intake in 2 AHA Presidential Advisories (published in 2011 and 2012) and maintains that clinical trial information supports limiting dietary sodium intake to less than 1500 mg per day (http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/). To reach a broader audience with such lifestyle and risk reduction measures, the AHA recently created a set of Answers by Heart Fact Sheets for the public. Provocative titles on HBP include the following:
* What is High Blood Pressure?
* How Can I Reduce High Blood Pressure?
* What is High Blood Pressure Medicine?
* Why Should I Limit Sodium?
* How Can I Monitor My Cholesterol, Blood Pressure, and Weight?
* What About African Americans and High Blood Pressure?
This May, consider raising similar questions to your patients and remind them that simple lifestyle changes to address HBP and its associated risk factors can potentially improve their cardiovascular disease risk and quality of life and make great gains for us all.
Blood Pressure - How Do You Measure Up?
To complement the month of May being National High Blood Pressure Education month, PCNA is encouraging the use of their patient education booklet, Blood Pressure-How Do You Measure Up? This patient education piece is 14 pages and is available at http://www.pcna.net as a free download. Printed versions are also available as a PCNA member benefit. In addition to the patient booklet, PCNA also publishes a double-sided patient handout titled "What You Need to Know: High Blood Pressure" available in English and Spanish. It is important to note that the patient education materials are nonbranded.
Blood Pressure-How Do You Measure Up? encourages patients and families to find ways to prevent and treat high blood pressure. Most of the sections in the booklet are set up as a quiz and suggestion format, keeping the reader involved. It has tabs to highlight each section and helps guide the reader to the content that he/she may need. The booklet's design is aesthetically pleasing and not overwhelming.
Hypertension is defined as a systolic blood pressure of higher than 140 mm Hg and/or a diastolic higher than 90 mm Hg. Systolic blood pressure is the amount of pressure it takes for the heart to squeeze blood to the body. Diastolic blood pressure is the amount of pressure when the heart is relaxed and filling with blood. Patients with systolic blood pressures between 120 and 139 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressures between 80 and 89 mm Hg are at risk for hypertension.
Many patients and families are taking inaccurate blood pressure readings mainly because of inappropriate cuff size or devices such as finger or wrist cuffs. Readings can be altered because of a cuff that is too large or too small. The current guidelines for cuff size are as follows: 8.5 to 10 inches, small adult; 10.5 to 13 inches, adult; 13.5 to 17 inches, large adult; and 17.5 to 20 inches, adult thigh cuff. The cuff should cover 80% of the upper arm and two-thirds of the distance from the elbow to the shoulder. PCNA's blood pressure booklet now contains a blood pressure cuff tape measure to assist patients in determining the correct cuff for their size.
Lifestyle is a major component in the treatment of hypertension. Through quizzes and checklists, PCNA's blood pressure booklet makes recommendations for getting more exercise, eating less salt, and reaching a healthy weight. Ways to achieve a diet of less than 1500 mg of sodium is taught through reading food labels and what foods to avoid. A healthy diet can be achieved by using well-known Web sites such as http://myplate.gov.
This booklet also gives patients a checklist to help them learn about their medications. Suggestions such as using a pill box, asking for large printed labels, and taking a list of medications to each office visit are listed in an easy-to-follow checklist. Finally, patients are asked to set up a plan to help lower and treat their hypertension. This type of dialogue between health providers and patients increases adherence to what is often a very complicated regimen. It is PCNA's mission to assist providers in the education of patients through our many patient education tools.
Meet a PCNA Member - Alethea Hill
After years as a registered nurse, Alethea Hill, PhD, RN, ANP-BC, became an acute care nurse practitioner in 2001 and started teaching the undergraduate/graduate program at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, in 2003.
"When I joined academia, I felt like I had found home because it allowed me to marry my love for clinical practice with education," says Hill. Dr Hill joined PCNA as a doctoral student as her research began to explore the effects of stress and allostatic load on insulin resistance as a predictor of cardiovascular disease. Since Dr Hill finished her PhD in 2011, she has been focusing on research in cardiovascular disease among African American women.
She has had many mentors along the way, including her current P3 mentor, who she found through PCNA.
"P3 was a fantastic opportunity for me to enhance my mentorship team because I wasn't being mentored by an experienced nurse who focused on cardiovascular disease," says Hill. "I have always seen PCNA as an organization that is on the cusp of current guidelines, literature and education," says Hill. "I wanted to be part of an organization that focused on cardiovascular disease in the way that PCNA does."
For more information on PCNA's P3 Mentoring program or for information on our on-demand and live continuing education opportunities, including the Annual Symposium, visit http://www.pcna.net.
*Institute of Medicine. The Future of Nursing-Leading Change, Advancing Health. October 2010. http://www.iom.edu/nursing. [Context Link]