Hello NER WOCN Members,
The New England Region Board and I would like to express our gratitude for those who were able to attend our networking Zoom meeting last Wednesday, March 23rd. It was such a well-received meeting and the conversation just kept flowing with amazing ideas, recommendations, insights. Those of us in acute care are more appreciative of the challenges faced in home care such as supplies, staffing, and expectations and the need to communicate with the visiting nurse agency in which are patients are being discharged to
Those employed in the visiting nurse setting learned that we struggle in acute care with ERAS and the need to discharge our patients sometimes within 3 days of ostomy surgery. This puts the burden on the visiting nurses to do the bulk of ostomy teaching. Another challenge for those in acute care is the difficulty to nd a VNA with a WOC nurse or find a SNF or long term care facility for our patients.
The big take home message for me is communication between ostomy nurses in acute care and those in visiting nurse settings as well as providing education for nurses in both settings.
There are many opportunities for us to work as a team for better patient outcomes and I believe this was a great start. We hope you all can now appreciate the burdens and challenges we all face.
We hope to have another zoom session in April in conjunction with our business meeting. The focus at that time will be ostomy care for our patients. Stay tuned for more information coming your way in April.
Donna Loehner
President New England Region WOCN