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The biggest enemy was not Russia
Tag Archives: data
Nightingale: Avant garde in meaningful data
In honor of Nurse Week, I offer this tribute to the avant garde research work of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea that saved lives and set a precedent worth following.
Nightingale was a “passionate statistician” knowing that outcome data are convincing when one wants to change the world. She did not merely collect the data, but also documented it in a way that revealed its critical meaning for care.
As noted by John H. Lienhard (1998-2002): 
“Once you see Nightingale’s graph, the terrible picture is clear. The Russians were a minor enemy. The real enemies were cholera, typhus, and dysentery. Once the military looked at that eloquent graph, the modern army hospital system was inevitable. You and I are shown graphs every day. Some are honest; many are misleading….So you and I could use a Florence Nightingale today, as we drown in more undifferentiated data than anyone could’ve imagined during the Crimean War.” (Source: Leinhard, 1998-2002)
As McDonald (2001) writes in the BMJ free, full-text, Nightingale was “a systemic thinker and a “passionate statistician.” She insisted on improving care by making policy & care decisions based on “the best available government statistics and expertise, and the collection of new material where the existing stock was inadequate.”(p.68)
Moreover, her display of the data brought its message home through visual clarity!
Thus while Nightingale adhered to some well-accepted, but mistaken, scientific theories of the time (e.g., miasma) her work was superb and scientific in the best sense of the word. We could all learn from Florence.
CRITICAL THINKING: What issue in your own practice could be solved by more data? How could you collect that data? If you have data already, how can you display it so that it it meaningful to others and “brings the point home”?
FOR MORE INFO:
- Leinhard, J.H. (1998-2002). No. 1712: Nightingale’s graph. Engines of our Ingenuity. Retrieved form http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1712.htm
- McDonald, L. (2001). EBN notebook: Florence Nightingale and the early origins of evidence-based nursing. Retrieved from http://ebn.bmj.com/content/ebnurs/4/3/68.full.pdf
- Nightingale, F. (1860). Notes on nursing: What it is and what it is not. New York, NY: D.Appleton & Co. Retrieved from http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/nightingale/nursing/nursing.html
HAPPY NURSE WEEK TO ALL MY COLLEAGUES.
MAY YOU GO WHERE THE DATA TAKES YOU!
Does Data Drive you Dotty? Then watch this!
Does the very idea of looking at data make your eyes cross and set your teeth on edge?
If so, I have the solution for you!! And you DO need a solution because Data–>Information–>Best Practices.
You might be surprised that in less than 10 minutes John Hicks at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–r9_R60Jws will have you able to describe the basic approach to data. He gives you 4 key steps & builds from there.
I promise: No eyes glazing over. No getting lost in numbers and calculations. No problem. Don’t worry; be happy.
I can feel it. Your research reading skills have gone up a notch! (And for those of you who are masters of data & analysis, enjoy this link for teaching others.)
For more Info: Watch his great follow-up, short, & sweet videos for more on statistics.
CRITICAL THINKING: First watch the video above—click here if you didn’t yet do that. Second outline the 4 steps using the abstract below. Third, answer these questions: Are the data quantitative or qualitative? Are the data are continuous or discrete? Are the data are primary or secondary?
Anjdersson, E.K., Willman, A., Sjostrom-Strand, A. & Borglin, G. (2015). Registered nurses’ descriptions of caring: A phenomenographic interview study. BMC Nursing. doi: 10.1186/s12912-015-0067-9
“Background: Nursing has come a long way since the days of Florence Nightingale and even though no consensus exists it would seem reasonable to assume that caring still remains the inner core, the essence of nursing. In the light of the societal, contextual and political changes that have taken place during the 21st century, it is important to explore whether these might have influenced the essence of nursing. The aim of this study was to describe registered nurses’ conceptions of caring. Methods: A qualitative design with a phenomenographic approach was used. The interviews with twenty-one nurses took place between March and May 2013 and the transcripts were analysed inspired by Marton and Booth’s description of phenomenography. Results: The analysis mirrored four qualitatively different ways of understanding caring from the nurses’ perspective: caring as person-centredness, caring as safeguarding the patient’s best interests, caring as nursing interventions and caring as contextually intertwined. Conclusion: The most comprehensive feature of the nurses’ collective understanding of caring was their recognition and acknowledgment of the person behind the patient, i.e. person-centredness. However, caring was described as being part of an intricate interplay in the care context, which has impacted on all the described conceptions of caring. Greater emphasis on the care context, i.e. the environment in which caring takes place, are warranted as this could mitigate the possibility that essential care is left unaddressed, thus contributing to better quality of care and safer patient care.” [quoted from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25834478]
Discovering Your Inner Scientist 