From nurse education, clinical, or workforce issues through to healthy living, Nursing Review has it covered.

E-cigarettes containing nicotine should be freely for sale and organisations allowed to decide where people can 'vape' to help people quit tobacco, says Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa.

ROSEMARY MINTO believes the key to making a difference to patients is finding the self-belief system driving their health behaviours. Read on to find out how out the primary health care nurse practitioner has chosen New Year's resolutions to help her to do just that.

Free prescriptions and more time … primary health nurse practitioner ROSEMARY MINTO argues for what could most help patients like Charlie*.

*Nurses are asked to be "kind and non-judgemental" in series of videos released on a new website aiming to help nurses better understand and help smokers stop.*

ANDY McLACHLAN – Scotsman, cardiology NP and past-consumer of deep-fried pizza and hamburgers the size of your head – recently got lectured by an after-hours pharmacist while picking up his type 2 diabetes medication.

A new national health target is underway on screening and referring obese four-year-olds. FIONA CASSIE finds out more and whether this is enough to help curtail the 10 per cent of Kiwi kids who are now clinically obese – fat to the point that their health is likely to be at risk.

Checking the feet of diabetes patients may be some of the most effective wound care a nurse can provide. FIONA CASSIE finds out more about how to prevent and detect the early signs of foot ulcers that can see people losing toes, feet and even legs.

From whitebaiters in gumboots to a women wearing their favourite boots: nurse REBECCA ABURN shares some case studies from the frontline of diabetes foot care.

Can nurse-led titration of heart failure medicine make a difference? Check out this edition’s Clinically Appraised Topic (CAT).

A dizzying amount of digital help is now potentially available for nurses to help patients self-manage their long-term conditions.  FIONA CASSIE seeks some advice from the experts on what technology nurses can add to their toolkits.

Chubby, obese, fat, bariatric, heavy. Finding the right words is just one of nurse researcher Caz Hales’ projects for improving the care of very large patients. FIONA CASSIE finds out more.

A nurse is naturally often the ‘go to’ person when someone in the family or whānau is diagnosed with a long-term or chronic condition. PATRICIA McCLUNIE-TRUST explores the issues involved. 

The nursing sector has its collective fingers crossed that it is only months away from nurse prescribing being opened up to more than just nurse practitioners and diabetes nurse specialists, including nurses working in other long-term conditions. Nursing Review reports.

Mobile video apps for face-to-face connection: Reducing the time public health nurses spend stuck in Auckland’s traffic can only be a good thing.

Crossing the digital divide with diabetes text messages: 'Old school’ text messaging is at the heart of an mHealth project to help motivate and support people with poorly controlled diabetes.

As our population ages, more and more people are living into old age with multiple long-term conditions. A University of Otago nurse-led randomised controlled trial is looking at whether training in both healthy living and mindfulness can make a difference to these people’s lives.

This Critically Appraised Topic (CAT) looks at whether getting on a bike or lacing up walking shoes improves the life, and life span, of people with coronary heart disease.

Loma-Linda Tasi got tired of teaching nursing students about Pacific people’s negative health statistics. The nursing lecturer, co-ordinator for year two of Whitireia Community Polytechnic’s Bachelor of Nursing (Pacific), decided she had to start somewhere to make a difference and a good place to begin was with herself and her students.

Follow Cardiac NP Annette Rief as she cycles and ferries her way to a day's work helping adults manage and live with congenital heart disease.

Research on a ‘smart inhaler’ that moos, miaows or rings out pop tunes and makes kids with asthma use their preventer more often won young hospital pharmacist Amy Chan the recent Medicines New Zealand 2015 Value of Medicines award.

The last edition of Nursing Review contained an article called ‘Fad diets: what do dietitians say about the latest crop?’ that looked at some of the latest dietary trends; in particular, the Paleo diet, the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet, the no-sugar approach and the low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) approach.

When it comes to smoking cessation tools, it seems there are mixed signals around e-cigarettes. Some argue they could be lifesavers for tobacco smokers struggling to quit; others argue they are a smokescreen for a new generation of problems. *So what knowledge should nurses have on the subject? Nursing Review attempts to clear the air.* 

Any diet that bans fruit has to raise eyebrows. The same goes for a diet that advocates lashings of cream and butter with every meal. The demonising of one food group as the source of all dietary evil, or the fixation on another as a saviour, is often the key selling point for the latest fashionable weight loss diet.

That patient with the persistent cough or wheeze may be mislabelled asthmatic. And that COPD patient prescribed a steroid inhaler may only be increasing their risk of pneumonia. Nursing Review talks to respiratory physician associate professor Jeff Garrett about misdiagnoses and misclassifications that can result in misprescribing for some airway disorders.

Nursing Review talks to pain management NP Sue King about not only the pain associated with the more common long-term conditions but also about chronic pain as a long-term condition in its own right – and how nurses can best help their patients manage it.

Counties Manukau District Health Board is entering its fifth year of successive campaigns to foster community answers to better self-management of long-term conditions (LTC) and fewer hospital admissions. FIONA CASSIE finds out more about the latest campaign, Manaaki Hauora, and about 'Huff and Puff'; just one of the 20 plus projects now underway.

’Tough customers’ are now turning up for appointments more and more often since primary health care NP Jane Dutton joined Whanganui’s Castlecliff Health nearly six months ago.

A pre-diabetes education programme successfully preventing diabetes in the community is one initiative that helped lead to Palmerston North clinical nurse specialist and diabetes prescriber Tracey McNeur being nominated as a nursing hero.

The hero nomination of home dialysis nurse Sue Patience is the result of her dedicated support of patients caught by last year’s Auckland power outage and her earlier work for evacuated Christchurch earthquake dialysis patients.

Long-term mental health clients die prematurely at up to three times the rate of the rest of the New Zealand population. FIONA CASSIE finds out how nurses have been responding to long-standing calls to improve the physical health of people with long-term mental illness.

A few years ago, starting insulin treatment was intimidatingly new, not only for patients but also many of their nurses and GPs. FIONA CASSIE looks at the Nursing Practice Partnership – a Diabetes Care Improvement Package underway in Wellington for nurses to share their diabetes expertise with practice nurses across the region.

Not ignoring “just a smoker’s cough” and other symptoms could see more of the 2000 Kiwis diagnosed with lung cancer each year living longer and better quality lives. FIONA CASSIE talks to lung cancer and respiratory nurse specialists about how nurses can play a part.

Heading into surgery, does it make much difference if you delay quitting smoking just another week…

Screening of the country’s Special Olympics athletes shows high levels of undiagnosed health issues. Special Olympics CEO KATHY GIBSON challenges the policy makers and the health sector to provide free health screening for people with intellectual disabilities.

Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child or teenager means living with an ‘in your face’, chronic condition for the rest of your life. FIONA CASSIE talks to adolescent diabetes nurse specialist Kirsty Newton and primary health nurse Catherine Nelson about creating an on-campus, specialist support service for young people with diabetes at Victoria University of Wellington.

Helping prevent and heal faster debilitating and costly leg ulcers is the aim of the first trans-Tasman clinical guidelines for venous leg ulcers. Two years on from launching the Australasian guidelines, the push is on to get wider implementation. Some of Australasia’s experts in the field provide an update.

Free prescriptions and more time … primary health nurse practitioner ROSEMARY MINTO argues for what could most help patients like Charlie*.

ANDY McLACHLAN – Scotsman, cardiology NP and past-consumer of deep-fried pizza and hamburgers the size of your head – recently got lectured by an after-hours pharmacist while picking up his type 2 diabetes medication. As a reformed character with great blood sugar, cholesterol, a BMI of 24 (and only succumbing to the occasional pink iced bun) McLachlan suggests sensitivity is needed for when and how health professionals’ offer lifestyle advice to patients.

Kerry Kennedy's day starts with her dog demanding a walk. Her working day starts at her home desk inputting yesterday's notes before hitting the road to visiting hepatitis patients needing regular blood tests because of the risk of liver disease.

Care Plus entered nursing’s vocabulary a decade ago. Has it helped nursing tackle the burden of chronic conditions and better support for people to manage their health? Or has it added up to not much? FIONA CASSIE does the sums…

Too narrow and too prescriptive is Helen Kjestrup’s verdict on Care Plus. So the clinical services manager for Masterton Medical Centre grabbed the chance offered by bulk-funding to say goodbye to the more onerous restrictions of Care Plus.

One of the country’s long-term conditions care pioneers has been bubbling with innovation but lagging behind in patients signed up to its basic care package.

After lagging at the bottom, Western Bay of Plenty PHO is now perched at the top of the ‘more heart checks’ performance table. FIONA CASSIE talks to RN and general practice coordinator Donna McArley on getting the heart tick and moving on to managing those highlighted as being at risk. She also talks to outreach clinical nurse leader Sue Matthews about doing heart checks at truck stops to freezing works.

Truckies are being waved down and pulled off the road in the Bay of Plenty for the good of their health.

Nursing Review checks out the momentum on the new Diabetes Care Improvement Packages and finds report cards ranging from ‘excellent’ to ‘could do better’.

A Christchurch randomised-control trial found people struggling with managing their diabetes made significant improvements after a one-day education session. FIONA CASSIE talks to Lisa Whitehead about the research team’s findings and their ‘hunch’ that combining cognitive behaviour therapy with education could be even more effective.

Canterbury quakes saw Christchurch lose more than 650 residential care beds. One response was TotalCare – a collaborative approach led by community-based Nurse Maude to offer residential care in the home. Nursing Review reports on Sheree East’s recent presentation on the scheme to the Home Health Association conference.

Diabetes nursing managed to ‘jump the gun’ to RN prescribing with a successful demonstration site. Next off the starting blocks is expected to be respiratory nursing. FIONA CASSIE looks at some specialist areas and their likely prescribing ambitions.

A free online learning programme to help primary health care nurses meet the growing demands for diabetes care is being offered on a newly launched website.

Anxious patients with chest pain who used to wait up to 100 days for review at Counties Manukau District Health Board are now being seen in less than 20 days.Nearly half of heart attack patients who used to wait up to six months for a cardiologist review are now seeing a nurse practitioner or CNS instead. FIONA CASSIE talks to cardiac nurse practitioner Andy McLachlan about the difference nurse-led clinics are making.

If your car is your home, it’s tough getting diabetes under control. FIONA CASSIE looks at a whānau ora approach to chronic conditions at one of the country’s first whānau ora centres.

Lyvia Marsden brings 50 years of nursing to the ‘non-nursing’ whānau ora model she developed for North Shore’s Te Puna Hauora. FIONA CASSIE talks to the president of the National Council of Māori Nurses and other Te Puna nurses about their approach to chronic conditions and whānau ora. And how nurses can't be all things to all people.

From July 1, free Get Checked diabetes annual reviews are no longer. Funding for the maligned scheme gave a kickstart to many nurse-led diabetes clinics in primary care. What happens next?

Respiratory nurse practitioner Diana Hart helps the morbidly obese breathe easily again at night. FIONA CASSIE learns more about her successful bi-level ventilation clinics.

JO ANN WALTON ponders self-management, partnership and how well nurses shape up as partners

CLINICALLY APPRAISED TOPIC (CAT): How does nurse-led care compare with cardiologist care of stable AF patients?

RRR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ARTICLE: The rhetoric around self-management for people with long-term conditions recognises that they themselves are the most concerned and constant contributor to their own care and that what they know is an untapped resource. At the same time, professionals are being advised to share decision-making, but does this go far enough? For the person living with a long-term condition, part of their work is to manage relationships and interactions with an array of health professionals and other helpers – amongst them, nurses. Just as professionals look for interest and engagement from those they care for – whether identified as patients, clients, consumers, or service-users – that expectation is mutual. In this learning activity, we’ll look at what shared decision-making means, especially for people with long-term conditions*.*

A decision on controversial proposals by Pharmac to move to a single supplier of diabetes testing systems is expected this month.

Can telehealth monitors in the home help nurses and doctors care for more patients with chronic conditions? Preliminary results from the country’s second telehealth research project – ASSET – indicate the answer is probably “yes”. FIONA CASSIE reports.

Map of Medicine** is an electronic collection of evidence-based care “maps” connecting all the knowledge and services around a clinical condition.

FIONA CASSIE talks to Faye Cobden-Grainge about a Manukau Institute of Technology pilot study getting nursing students to ‘walk the talk’ of health promotion.

A pilot of prescribing by diabetes nurse specialists was safe, effective, and popular with patients according to a newly-released evaluation report

JUDY YARWOOD muses over the French ‘healthy’ lifestyle.

Getting asthma under control is the aim of the simple web-based tool GASP, targeted at nurses and GPs. And its success in helping cut hospital admissions and exacerbations has made it an award winner. Fiona Cassie talks to Wendy McNaughton, the respiratory nurse behind GASP

Be it asthma or pneumonia, every nurse at some point cares for someone with a respiratory condition. Helping nurses evaluate their respiratory nursing skills or guide their development as a specialist is the aim of a soon-to-be-finalised knowledge and skills framework. Fiona Cassie finds out more.