”Three decades of evidence have shown that nurse practitioners with full practice authority play a vital role in improving health outcomes, especially in underserved communities, Ramos observed in his remarks. Focusing on the connections between FPA, access to care, and health outcomes, the Dean presented his case to the state’s Joint Legislative Committee on Access to Healthcare and Medicaid Expansion at the North Carolina General Assembly and urged them to pass the SAVE Act to grant full practice authority for NPs providing primary care. Ramos, who is also the vice-chancellor of nursing affairs for Duke, was among eight experts presenting varied views on full practice authority.
“Full practice authority isn’t new. This isn’t innovative. We have 30 years of evidence from 24 states, D.C., and several US territories about the benefit of granting full practice authority to NPs.”
In speaking to the joint committee presided over by Sen. Joyce Krawiec, Ramos addressed the role that nurse practitioners have in transforming health care access and outcomes in North Carolina, including the opportunity to expand care in rural areas that face health care shortages. The joint committee is hearing from experts as they consider passing the SAVE Act, which was first introduced in 2021 to expand full practice authority for primary care NPs in North Carolina. A similar version of the SAVE Act has been introduced in previous legislative sessions, but no action was taken on the legislation.
Role of FPA in Access to Care and Health Outcomes
“Nurse practitioners should be able to practice at the highest level of their competencies, education, and licensing,” Ramos said. “Full practice authority isn’t new. This isn’t innovative. We have 30 years of evidence from 24 states, D.C., and several US territories about the benefit of granting full practice authority to NPs. This improves health outcomes and expands health care to underserved populations and will benefit the people of North Carolina.”
Across the state, 97 of 100 counties face a health professional shortage.
Ramos reflected on his role as dean of the top school of nursing in the state and the second-ranked school in the U.S., and the intense pride he has seeing Duke graduates strengthen their career opportunities with the education they gain at Duke. “The nurse practitioner workforce growth is faster in states with full practice laws than in states with restricted practice,” said Ramos, who is interested in attracting NPs to practice in the state.
Ramos observed that the first states to authorize full NP practice authority began doing so in 1994 — nearly three decades ago — and that, once passed, full NP practice authority has never been repealed. “Full practice authority for primary care NPs improves care access, improves care outcomes, and improves workforce supply,” said Ramos, who also addressed a systematic review of 33 studies that showed no evidence for better NP care outcomes in states with more practice restrictions.
NPs with FPA Increase Efficacy of a State’s Health Workforce
In addressing the critical nursing workforce shortages across the U.S., Ramos notes that NP workforce growth is faster in states with full practice laws compared to states with restricted practice. Across the U.S., during the COVID-19 pandemic, states issued temporary waivers of NP practice restrictions. “This enabled more time-responsive NP practice and care provision as well as a streamlined process for NP orders in the absence of physician signature requirements and an increased capacity of the health care workforce to respond to COVID-19,” Ramos said.
Ramos observes that the reliance of nurses in this manner during a pandemic and health care crisis demonstrates the clinical, scientific, and relational expertise that support nurse influence in improving health outcomes, and it demonstrates the confidence that the health care systems and public have in nurses, who have been considered the most trusted and most ethical profession for more than 20 years.
In conclusion, Ramos pointed out to the committee that:
NP practice restrictions contribute to inadequate care access and primary care workforce shortages, particularly in rural areas.
NP practice restrictions can be a barrier to improving health outcomes and reducing health outcomes and reducing health-related economic costs.
NP practice restrictions requirements can lead to an unsafe and fragile care model, including risks such as the possibility of immediate NP loss of ability to care for patients if a physician can no longer provide supervision for any reason, including moving, retiring, and so on.
NP practice restrictions weaken health workforce responsiveness to emergencies.
Physician supervision agreements can contribute to unnecessary and excessive costs.
The SAVE Act (House Bill 277/Senate Bill 249) did not receive a committee hearing during the 2021 legislative long session. However, following the conclusion of the committee’s work later this spring, the bill could move forward when the legislature returns for the 2022 short session on May 18, 2022.
Yes, she’s a frontline nurse during the apex of the Delta summer surge, but Nurse of the Week Misty Freeman, RN, CCRN knows that she’s where she belongs. The North Carolina ICU nurse told local reporter Wylie Bell Richmond, “I love critical care nursing, and although we are in a pandemic, I couldn’t see myself in any other career during this time.”
Freeman focuses on Covid patients right now but is known as an all-rounder. She’s worked in units ranging from the ER and ICU to the progressive care unit, women’s service, and telemetry. And there is no proverbial “eating of our young” at Scotland Memorial Hospital, where she has worked for nearly 15 years. Having been a candy-striper as a teen, Freeman has a place in her heart for any of the “new kids.” She makes time to support new nurses on the unit and mentors them and the cohorts of nursing students from Richmond Community College.
A graduate of Richmond Community College – where she earned her ADN (Associate Degree in Nursing) – Freeman recalls being inspired by the faculty – and her own RCC mentor is proud to return the compliment. Her former instructor Ronnie Lynn Tunstall, in fact, offers the kind of praise that one might tape to their mirror as a daily affirmation message: “Misty is a positive role model, but above and beyond she is an amazing nurse who takes care of her patients, families and other members of the healthcare team.”
“I went into nursing because I love helping people, and no matter what, I would do that at any cost.”
Her formative ADN experience entailed a great deal of hard work and perseverance – and close attention to nurturing a fast-growing infant. As she considered plans for embarking on her dream career, Freeman know she couldn’t lose time chasing will-o’-the-wisps. “At the time [that I enrolled], I had a small child so going off to a university wasn’t an option. After doing some research, I knew that going off to a university did not necessarily make you a better nurse.” She adds, “I knew RichmondCC had an awesome nursing program.”
While inspiring, it was also challenging. At dinner times, her family soon became accustomed to seeing Freeman arrive at the table with her textbooks, so she could keep up with her assignments.
“Nothing came easy for me and I knew that I had to get through the program the first time around so I really had to study. My parents are the ones who instilled in me that education is important, and they helped me get through school.”
Freeman only earned her ADN degree at Richmond CC, but her experience in the program brought her love of nursing to full bloom, leaving her with a profound attachment to her alma mater and to Scotland Memorial as well (the hospital covered most of her college expenses during her first two years there).
“After doing some research, I knew that going off to a university did not necessarily make you a better nurse.”
What does she see for her future? There IS another dream, albeit still within the nursing fold. Freeman is bent on becoming a flight nurse. “I did a ride-along program with Duke Life Flight [in Durham, NC], and the experience was amazing,” she says. So, Scotland Memorial’s “role model” nurse may spread her wings further before long.
First, though, she may wait to establish a family tradition at RCC and SMH. Freeman’s now-grown daughter, Hailey Bustard, is studying at Richmond CC and preparing to transfer into a radiology program. Hailey’s mom couldn’t be happier about this: “College can be one of the most exciting times in your life. It’s an experience that comes with memories that last a lifetime… I’m proud my daughter is attending RichmondCC and… getting the support she needs to accomplish her goals.”
And does Freeman feel that she did in fact “sign on” for a pandemic? Well, she does say, “I went into nursing because I love helping people, and no matter what, I would do that at any cost.”
To see more details on Misty Freeman, check out this story on the RCC News.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Each time Chayse Roth drives home to North Carolina, he notices the highway welcome signs that declare: “Nation’s Most Military Friendly State.”
“That’s a powerful thing to claim,” said Roth, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Now he says he’s calling on the state to live up to those words. A Wilmington resident, Roth is advocating for lawmakers to pass a bill that would legalize medical marijuana and allow veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other debilitating conditions to use it for treatment.
“I’ve lost more men to suicide since we went to Afghanistan in ’01 than I have in combat,” said Roth, who said he doesn’t use cannabis himself but wants others to have the option. “It’s just unacceptable for these guys to go overseas and win the battle and come home and lose the battle to themselves.”
He is among several veterans brought together by a recently formed advocacy group called NC Families for Medical Cannabis. These veterans have testified before the legislature and visited lawmakers individually.
In a state that’s home to eight military bases, one of the largest veteran populations in the country and a Republican-controlled legislature that prides itself on supporting the troops, they hope their voices will act as a crucial lever to push through a bill that has faced opposition in the past.
“If we really want to be the most veteran-friendly state in the union, this is just another thing we can do to solidify that statement,” Roth said.
From California to Massachusetts, veterans have been active in the push for medical marijuana legalization for decades. But now, as the movement focuses on the remaining 14 states that have not enacted comprehensive medical marijuana programs or full marijuana legalization, their voices may have outsize influence, experts say.
Many of these remaining states are in the traditionally conservative South and dominated by Republican legislatures. “The group carrying the message here makes a huge difference,” said Julius Hobson Jr., a former lobbyist for the American Medical Association who now teaches lobbying at George Washington University. “When you’ve got veterans coming in advocating for that, and they’re considered to be a more conservative bunch of folks, that has more impact.”
Veterans also have the power of numbers in many of these states, Hobson said. “That’s what gives them clout.”
To be sure, not every veteran supports these efforts, and the developments in red states have been influenced by other factors: advocacy from cancer patients and parents whose children have epilepsy, lawmakers who see this as a states’ rights issue, a search for alternative pain relief amid the opioid epidemic and a push from industries seeking economic gains.
But the attention to the addiction and suicide epidemics among veterans, and calls to give them more treatment options, are also powerful forces.
In states like North Carolina, where statewide ballot initiatives are banned, veterans can kick-start a conversation with lawmakers who hold the power to make change, said Garrett Perdue, the son of former North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue and a spokesperson for NC Families for Medical Cannabis and CEO of Root Bioscience, a company that makes hemp products.
“It fits right in with the general assembly’s historical support of those communities,” Perdue said. “For [lawmakers] to hear stories of those people that are trusted to protect us and enforce the right of law” and see them as advocates for this policy “is pretty compelling.”Gary Hess (left) and Chayse Roth have testified at North Carolina Legislature hearings advocating for a bill to legalize medical marijuana ― primarily as a treatment for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.(ROB RENS)
Gary Hess, a Marine Corps veteran from Louisiana, said he first realized the power of his platform in 2019, when he testifiedin front of the state legislature about seeing friends decapitated by explosions, reliving the trauma day-to-day, taking a cocktail of prescription medications that did little to help his symptoms and finally finding relief with cannabis. His story resonated with lawmakers who had served in the military themselves, Hess said.
He recalled one former colonel serving in the Louisiana House telling him: “They’re not going to say no to a veteran because of the crisis you’re all in. As someone who is put together well and can tell the story of marijuana’s efficacy, you have a powerful platform.”
Hess has since started his own nonprofit to advocate for medical marijuana legalization and has traveled to other state and national events, including hearings before the North Carolina legislature.
“Once I saw the power my story had,” he said, “the goal became: How do I expedite this process for others?”
Experts trace the push for medical marijuana legalization back to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, particularly in California’s Bay Area.
As the movement tried to expand, medical marijuana activists realized other regions were not as sympathetic to the LGBTQ community, said Lee Hannah, an associate professor of political science at Wright State University who is writing a book about the rise of legal marijuana in the U.S. They had to find “more target populations that evoke sympathy, understanding and support,” Hannah said.
Over time, the medical marijuana conversation grew from providing symptom relief for patients with AIDS to include such conditions as cancer, pediatric epilepsy and PTSD, Hannah and his colleagues noted in a 2020 research paper. With each condition added, the movement gained wider appeal.
“It helped change the view of who a marijuana user is,” said Daniel Mallinson, a co-author on the 2020 paper and the upcoming book with Hannah, and an assistant professor at the Penn State-Harrisburg School of Public Affairs. “That makes it more palatable in these legislatures where it wouldn’t have been before.”
The movement got another boost in 2016 when the American Legion, a veterans organization with 1.8 million members known for its conservative politics, urged Congress to remove marijuana from its list of prohibited drugs and allow research into its medical uses.
“I think knowing an organization like the American Legion supports it frankly gives [lawmakers] a little bit of political cover to do something that they may have all along supported but had concerns about voter reaction,” said Lawrence Montreuil, the group’s legislative director.
In Texas, when the Republican governor recently approved a law expanding the state’s limited medical marijuana program, he tweeted: “Veterans could qualify for medical marijuana under new law. I will sign it.”
It’s smart political messaging, Hannah said. Elected officials “are always looking to paint laws they support in the most positive light, and the approval rate of veterans is universally high.”
Nationally, veteran-related marijuana bills seem to be among the few cannabis-related reforms that have gained bipartisan support. Bills with Democratic and Republican co-sponsors in Congress this session deal with promoting research into medical marijuana treatment for veterans, allowing Veterans Affairs doctors to discuss cannabis with patients in states where it is legal and protecting veterans from federal penalization for using state-legalized cannabis.
Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who has co-sponsored two bipartisanbills concerning veterans and medical marijuana this session, said the interest of veterans is “what drew me to cannabis in the first place.”
In North Carolina, veterans like Roth and Hess, along with various advocacy groups, continue to drum up support for the medical marijuana bill. They know it’s a long battle. The bill must clear several Senate committees, a full Senate vote and then repeat the process in the House. But Roth said he’s optimistic “the veteran aspect of it will be heavily considered by lawmakers.”
An early indication of that came at a Senate committee hearing earlier this summer. Standing at the podium, Roth scrolled through his phone to show lawmakers how many of his veteran contacts were now dead due to suicide. Other veterans testified about the times they had contemplated suicide and how the dozens of prescription medications they had tried before cannabis had done little to quiet those thoughts.
The hearing room was silent as each person spoke. At the end, the lawmakers stood and gave a round of applause “for those veterans who are with us today and those who are not.”
In North Carolina, the nation’s leading tobacco producer, any adult who has smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime can now be vaccinated against covid.
In Florida, people under 50 with underlying health conditions can get vaccinated only if they have written permission from their doctor.
In Mississippi, more than 30,000 covid vaccine appointments were open Friday — days after the state became the first in the contiguous United States to make the shots available to all adults.
In California — along with about 30 other states — people are eligible only if they are 65 or older or have certain health conditions or work in high-risk jobs.
How does any of this make sense?
“There is no logical rationale for the system we have,” said Graham Allison, a professor of government at Harvard University. “We have a crazy quilt system.”
Jody Gan, a professional lecturer in the health studies department at American University in Washington, D.C., said the lack of a national eligibility system reflects how each state also makes its own rules on public health. “This hasn’t been a great system for keeping, you know, the virus contained,” she said.
The federal government bought hundreds of millions of doses of covid vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — as well as other vaccines still being tested — but it left distribution largely up to the states. Some states let local communities decide when to move to wider phases of eligibility.
When the first vaccines were cleared for emergency use in December, nearly all states followed guidance from the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and restricted use to front-line health workers and nursing home staffs and residents.
But since then states have gone their own way. Some states have prioritized people age 75 and older, while others have also allowed people who held certain jobs that put them at risk of being infected or had health conditions that put them at risk to be included with seniors for eligibility. Even then, categories of jobs and medical conditions have varied across the country.
As the supply of vaccines ramped up over the past month, states expanded eligibility criteria. President Joe Biden promised that by May 1 all adults will be eligible for vaccines and at least a dozen states say they will beat that date or, as in the case of Mississippi and Alaska, already have.
But the different rules among states — and sometimes varying rules even within states — created a mishmash. This has unleashed “vaccine jealousy” as people see friends and family in other states qualify ahead of them even if they are the same age or have the same occupation. And it has raised concerns that decisions on who is eligible are being made based on politics rather than public health.
The hodgepodge mirrors states’ response overall to the pandemic, including wide disparities on mask mandates and restrictions for indoor gatherings.
“It’s caused a lot of confusion, and the last thing we want is confusion,” said Harald Schmidt, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
As a result, some Americans frantically search online every day for an open vaccine appointment, while vaccines in other states go wanting.
The assorted policies have also prompted thousands of people to drive across state lines — sometimes multiple state lines — for an open vaccine appointment. Some states have set up residency requirements, although enforcement has been uneven and those seeking vaccines are often on the honor system.
Todd Jones, an assistant professor of economics at Mississippi State University near Starkville, said the confusion signals a need for a change in how the government handles the vaccine. “The Biden administration should definitely be thinking about how it might want to change state allocations based on demand,” Jones said. “If it does become clear that some states are actually not using lots of their doses, then I think it would make sense to take some appointments from these states to give to other states that have higher demand.”
Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University, said no one should be surprised to see 50 different eligibility systems because states opposed a uniform federal eligibility system.
“Many governors don’t want to be seen as someone who listens to the federal government or the CDC for guidance,” he said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has boasted of ignoring the CDC advice when he opted to make anyone 65 and older eligible beginning in December.
“There is a lot of political posturing in deciding eligibility,” Khubchandani said.
To be sure, governors also wanted the flexibility to respond to particular needs in their states, such as rushing vaccines to agricultural workers or those in large food-manufacturing plants.
Jones said the decision to open vaccines to all adults in the state may sound good, but Mississippi has one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates. Part of that is attributed to hesitancy among some minority communities and conservatives. “It’s good news everybody can get it, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of demand for it.”
Jones, 34, was able to go online for a shot on Tuesday and was vaccinated at a large church a short drive from his home on Thursday morning. “I was very happy,” he said.
Published courtesy ofKHN (Kaiser Health News), a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
Though African Americans are being hospitalized for COVID-19 at more than triple the rate of white Americans, wariness of the new vaccine is higher in the Black population than in most communities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted communities of color as a “critical population” to vaccinate. But ProPublica found little in the way of concrete action to make sure that happens.
And it could be hard to track which populations are getting the vaccine. While the CDC has asked states to report the race and ethnicity of every recipient, along with other demographic information like age and sex, the agency doesn’t appear ready to apply any downward pressure to ensure that such information will be collected.
In state vaccination registries, race and ethnicity fields are simply considered “nice to have,” explained Mitchel Rothholz, chief of governance and state affiliates for the American Pharmacists Association. While other fields are mandatory, such as the patient’s contact information and date of birth, leaving race and ethnicity blank “won’t keep a provider from submitting the data if they don’t have it.”
In the initial stages, vaccines will go to people who are easy to find, like health care workers and nursing home residents. But barriers will increase when distribution moves to the next tier — which includes essential workers, a far larger and more amorphous group. Instead of bringing the vaccine to them, it’s more likely that workers will have to seek out the vaccine, so hesitancy and lack of access will become important factors in who gets the shots and who misses out.
“There are individuals who are required to be on the front line to serve in their jobs but perhaps don’t have equitable access to health care services or have insurance but it’s a challenge to access care,” said Dr. Grace Lee, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is tasked with issuing guidance on the prioritization of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. “We can build equity into our recommendations, but implementation is where the rubber meets the road.”
Hesitancy is Rooted in Medical Exploitation and Mistreatment
About a quarter of the public feels hesitant about a COVID-19 vaccine, meaning they probably or definitely would not get it, according to a December poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Hesitancy was higher than average among Black adults in the survey, with 35% saying that they definitely or probably would not get vaccinated.
Mistrust of the medical community among people of color is well-founded, stemming from a history of unscrupulous medical experimentation. The infamous Tuskegee study, conducted from 1932 to 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service, still looms large in the memories of many Black Americans, who remember how researchers knowingly withheld treatment from African American sharecroppers with syphilis in order to study the disease’s progression.
But the injustices aren’t confined to the past. The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine has found that minorities tend to receive lower-quality health care than white counterparts, even when adjusting for age, income, insurance and severity of condition. Black Americans are also more likely to be uninsured and utilize primary care services less often than white Americans.
“It’s not just about history. It’s about the here and now,” said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. “People point to racial injustice across the system. It’s not just hospitals; people don’t trust the government, or they ask about the pharmaceutical industry’s profit motive. From the very beginning, Black and brown people are marginalized from the enterprise of research. They think: ‘So few people look like us in research, industry and academia, why should we trust that someone at that table is thinking of our interest?’”
When it comes to vaccinations, the consequences can be grave. Black and Hispanic people are less likely to get the flu shot than white people, according to the CDC. At the same time, Black Americans have the highest rate of flu-associated hospitalizations, at 68 people per 100,000 population, compared to 38 people per 100,000 in the non-Hispanic white population.
Health officials have tried to assuage vaccine concerns in the traditional way, by publicizing specific individuals receiving the shot. The U.S. began its mass immunization effort by injecting a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine into the left upper-arm of Sandra Lindsay, a Black woman and critical care nurse in New York.
Meanwhile, an onslaught of memes and conspiracy theories characterizing the vaccine as harmful are making the rounds on social media. One reads, “Just had the covid-19 vaccine. Feeling great,” along with the picture of the character from the 1980 movie “The Elephant Man.” Another image circulating on Twitter features the photos of three Black people and claims they are suffering from Bell’s palsy due to the vaccine. The Twitter user who shared the image asked followers, “still want those Tuskegee 2.0 genocide vaccines?”
It may only take one or two negative headlines to further sow fear, said Komal Patel, who has 16 years of experience as a pharmacist in California. After two health care workers in the United Kingdom experienced allergic reactions to Pfizer’s vaccine, Patel said she saw anxiety spike on social media, even though regulators have said that only people with a history of anaphylaxis — a severe or life threatening immune reaction — to ingredients in the vaccine need to avoid taking the shot. “Just two patients, and here we go, there’s all this chatter.”
Key States Lack Concrete Plans to Promote Vaccines in Black Communities
It falls to states to make sure their residents of color are vaccinated. But the speed at which the vaccine needs to be disseminated means that states haven’t had much time to plan communications efforts, said Lee, from CDC’s advisory group. “How do we make sure messaging is appropriate? You may want to emphasize different messages for different communities. We don’t have the time for that.”
ProPublica found that few states can articulate specifically what they are doing to address vaccine skepticism in the Black community.
Texas, Georgia and Illinois’ state plans make no mention of how they plan to reach and reassure their Black residents. Black communities make up between 13% and 33% of the population in the three states, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. None of the three states’ health departments responded to requests for comment.
California’s state plan includes “a public information campaign … to support vaccine confidence,” but does not provide details apart from the state’s intention to use social media, broadcast outlets and word of mouth. In an email, the California Department of Public Health did not provide additional information about outreach to Black residents, only saying, “this is an important issue we continue to work on.”
A spokesman for New York’s Department of Public Health said the state has been working since September to overcome hesitancy with expert panels and events like Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s November meeting with community leaders in Harlem to discuss concerns with the Trump administration’s vaccine plan, specifically for communities of color.
“Governor Cuomo has been leading the national effort to ensure…black, brown and underserved communities have equal access to, and confidence in, the vaccine,” a Saturday statement said.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said: “Media outreach is not enough. TV ads are one thing, but usually public service announcements are at midnight when nobody is listening, because that’s when they’re free.” Normally, public health officials go to barber shops, beauty salons, bowling alleys and other popular locales to hand out flyers and answer questions, but due to the pandemic and limits on congregating, that’s not an option, Benjamin said, so officials need to plan a serious social media strategy. That could involve partnering with “influencers” like sports figures and music stars by having them interview public health figures, Benjamin suggested.
Dr. Mark Kittleson, chair of the Department of Public Health at New York Medical College, said he’s not surprised to hear how vague some of the state health plans are, because states often focus on providing high-level guidance while county or regional level health departments are left to execute the plan. But he said specific efforts need to be undertaken to reach residents of color. “Spokespeople for the vaccination need to be a diverse group,” Kittleson said. “Dr. Tony Fauci is fantastic, but every state needs to find the leading health care experts that represent the diversity in their own state, whether it’s Native American, African American or Latino.” Kittleson also suggested partnering with churches.“Especially in the African American community, when the minister stands up and says, ‘Folks, you need to take your blood pressure medication and take care of yourself,’ people listen to that,” he said. “The church needs to be brought into the fold.”
Maryland’s state plan acknowledges the distrust among Black and Latino communities as well as rural residents, and says it will aim to tailor communication to each group by working with trusted community partners and representatives of vulnerable groups. A Department of Health spokesperson said in an email that “as vaccination distribution continues to ramp up, we urge all individuals to get the vaccine.”
Florida’s written plan includes a messaging strategy for everyone in the state, but does not specifically address the Black community. A “thorough vaccination communication plan continues to be developed in order to combat vaccine hesitancy,” a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health said in response to ProPublica’s queries.
In North Carolina and Virginia, however, health officials started preparing months ago to reassure residents about potential vaccines. North Carolina formed a committee in May with leaders from marginalized communities to guide the state’s overall response to the pandemic. Vaccine concerns were a priority, said Benjamin Money, deputy secretary of health services for North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The politicization of the pandemic has mobilized the Black and brown medical scientific community to dig into the research and how the vaccines work, Money said, “so that they can feel assured that the vaccine’s safe and it’s effective and they can convey the message to their patients and to their community constituents.”
The committee is advising North Carolina officials on their vaccine messaging and hosting a webinar for Black religious leaders. Similarly, the Virginia Department of Health has staff devoted to health equity across racial and ethnic groups and is putting on a series of town hall-style meetings speaking to specific communities of color.
Black residents in Virginia have expressed concerns about how rapidly the early vaccines were developed, said Dr. Norman Oliver, Virginia’s state health commissioner.
“It all boils down to telling people the truth,” Oliver said. “The first thing to let folks know is that one of the reasons why these vaccines were developed so quickly is because of the advances in technology since the last time we did vaccines; we’re not trying to grow live virus and keep it under control or do attenuated virus and develop a vaccine this way.”
In addition to promoting reliable information, Virginia health officials hired a company to monitor the spread of vaccine misinformation in the state and to locate where falsehoods appear to be taking hold, Oliver said. The state hopes to target its communications in places where distrust is most intense.
The CDC has set aside $6.5 million to support 10 national organizations, according to spokesperson Kristen Nordlund. The funds are “to be disbursed by each organization to their affiliates and chapters across the country so they may do immunization-focused community engagement in the local communities they serve,” Nordlund said in an email. She didn’t respond to questions on whether the funds had already been disbursed and to which organizations.
Data Collection on the Race of Vaccine Recipients is Likely to be Incomplete
Every state has a vaccination registry, where data on administered shots is routinely reported, from childhood vaccinations to the flu shot. What’s new in this pandemic is that the CDC has requested all the data be funneled up to the federal level, so it can track vaccination progress across the nation.
“Race and ethnicity data should be recorded in states’ immunization data, but we do not know how reliably it is collected,” said Mary Beth Kurilo, senior director of health informatics at the American Immunization Registry Association. “We really don’t have good data on how well it’s captured out there across the country.”
Many immunization records are fed into the state’s registry directly from a doctor’s electronic health record system, Kurilo said, which can present technological stumbling blocks: “Is [the data] routinely captured as part of the registration process? Can they capture multiple races, which I think is something that’s become increasingly important going forward?”
When asked about historic rates of compliance and how they planned to gather information on race and ethnicity of vaccine recipients this time, health departments from Georgia, Texas, Illinois, Florida and California didn’t respond.
Maryland’s state plans indicate it intends to use information gathered through its vaccine appointment scheduling system, including demographic data gathered from recipients, to direct its communication outreach efforts. The Maryland Department of Health, which didn’t provide more detailed information, said it is “currently exploring all options as far as vaccine data reporting.”
North Carolina’s immunization records system routinely collects race and ethnicity information, and a spokesperson told ProPublica it has that type of demographic data for 71% of people in the system. Stephanie Wheawill, director of pharmacy services at the Virginia Department of Health, said that providers will be “asked to record that information” but didn’t elaborate on how the department planned to encourage or enforce compliance.
Data fields for vaccine recipients’ race and ethnicity are standard in New York, a spokesman said. But the state didn’t provide any details about rates of compliance in supplying that data.
“You’ve got to have the data to compare,” said Martha Dawson, president of the National Black Nurses Association and an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s nursing school. “Because if you don’t have the data, then we’re just guessing. There’s no way to know who received it if you don’t take the data.”
There is tension between gathering enough data to understand the extent of the rollout and the possibility that asking for too much information will scare away people who are already leery of the vaccine.
“The biggest concern people have is how will this information be used?” said Lee, from the CDC’s advisory group. “People need to trust that the data will be used with a good intent. “
Rothholz, with the American Pharmacists Association, said there could be ways apart from state registries to estimate vaccine uptake among minorities. “If I’m a community pharmacy in a predominantly African American community, if I’m giving away 900 or 1000 vaccines, you can track penetration that way,” he said. Geographic-based analysis, however, would depend on the shots being distributed via community pharmacies rather than by mass vaccination sites — a less likely scenario for the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be administered, which requires ultracold storage that will be difficult for many small pharmacies to manage.
It Will Be Up to Doctors and Community Leaders to Encourage Trust
The best way to help a worried individual, whether scared about data collection or the vaccine itself, is a conversation with a trusted caregiver, according to Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association.
“Time and again it’s been shown that one of the most valuable things to encourage a patient to undertake a change, whether it’s stopping smoking or losing weight, is a one-on-one conversation with a trusted caregiver — having your physician saying, ‘I took it and I really want you to take it too,” she said. “But patients have to have the opportunity to ask questions, and not to be blown off or belittled or feel troublesome for asking all their questions.”
“If someone says that they’re afraid of being a guinea pig, maybe drill a bit deeper,” Bailey suggested. “Ask, ‘What are you concerned about? Are you concerned about side effects? Are you concerned that not enough people have taken it?’”
The American Academy of Family Physicians uses the mnemonic “ACT” to guide their members in conversations with patients of color, president Dr. Ada Stewart said in an email: “Be Accountable and Acknowledge both historical and contemporary transgressions against Black, brown and Indigenous communities. … Communicate safety, efficacy and harms such that individuals can weigh their own personal risk to potential benefits, and exercise Transparency with regard to the development of vaccines and the distribution process.”
David Hodge, associate director of education at Tuskegee University’s National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, urges Black and brown leaders such as pastors and community organizers to take control of the messaging right now and not wait for their local governments to tackle the issue.
“We’re not in a position right now to be patient. We’re not in a position to sit on the sidelines, we have to make it happen.”
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In a year in which so many nurses displayed bravery, suffered hardships, and shone in countless ways, DailyNurse might easily have featured a “Nurse of the Day” instead of a Nurse of the Week.
Nurses have always gone the extra mile to communicate with patients and make them feel more comfortable and cared for, and we all know former patients who were so inspired by their nurses that they decided to enter the profession themselves. As 2020 raised the curtain on the Year of the Nurse, though, no one could have anticipated it would be a watershed year in which nurses became global icons of hope and courage.
Whether You’re a Hero, or Merely Awesome, Take a Bow…
Boston HCWs celebrate arrival of Covid-19 vaccine in December.
The public has long admired nurses, but this year, the world has watched nurses brave the pandemic to work in seemingly impossible conditions, act as stand-ins for patients’ absent families, and leave home to speed to the relief of overwhelmed hospitals all over the US.
Nonetheless, many of our 2020 Nurses of the Week (NotW) eschewed the word “hero.” If you glance at remarks from our 2020 Nurses of the Week, you might note that while they take pride in their work, few sound like they are ready to accessorize their mask with a Superman cape. Naturally, they are happy to see their work recognized, but nurses constantly go out of their way to make patients feel less frightened and alone. As frontliner Tabatha Kentner said, “This is what we do. This is why we’re here.” Nurses save lives—and when they cannot, they comfort patients in their final hours and console distraught families. It’s not an occasional phenomenon; it is an everyday occurrence. The name and photo in Wednesday’s NotW feature could easily be your own because your expertise and empathy make you a Nurse of the Week every day of the year.
On the last Wednesday of 2020, DailyNurse salutes the Nurses of the Week who made their mark during the Year of the Nurse!
Great (and Caring) Communicators
RN Emily Fawcett, Lenox Hill Hospital, NYC.
A recurring theme is nurses who use their unique talents to raise patients’ and staff members’ spirits. Some, like Marc Perreault and Lori Marie Kay, shared their musical gifts. At Lenox Hill Hospital during the height of the New York City outbreak, Emily Fawcett helped boost morale in her ICU by meeting with staff for positive-thinking “hope huddles” before starting their shifts.
Danielle Fenn applied her language skills to comfort non-English speaking Covid patients. Others, like Tabatha Kentner, have been acting as “angels” (the word angel comes from the Greek angelos, which means “messenger”) and facilitating virtual visits so patients and their loved ones can commune even in isolation (and when necessary, say their final goodbyes).
Advocates and Public Servants
RN Andrea Dalzell on Good Morning America.
2020 was a year in which nurses stepped forward, spoke up, and got involved in public and civic health. Expect to see more of this in 2021 and years to come (we hope!). Metastatic breast cancer survivor Stephanie Walker is tirelessly advocating for cancer patients and patient education in North Carolina. Another indefatigable advocate, Andrea Dalzell, is on a mission to invite wheelchair-bound people to enter the nursing profession.
NYPD’s new Special Victims Unit head Michael King is a veteran SANE—and he is determined to improve the treatment of rape victims by police and other first responders. American Academy of Nursing (AAN) “Living Legend” Mary Wakefield is sharing her public health expertise and experience in the Obama administration with the Biden-Harris transition team.
Another AAN “Living Legend,” 85-year-old Marie Manthey, is promoting frank, open dialogues between Black and White nurses, and calling upon all White allies to combat structural racism and unconscious bias.
Frontline Troopers
Anna Slayton, BSN, RN-BC
Tens of thousands of nurses this year packed their bags and took off to lend a hand in the nation’s hotspots. Reports on horrific conditions in hard-hit city hospitals were a virtual Bat-Signal for many nurses. They stashed extra masks in their suitcases, said goodbye to their loved ones, and flew to the most dangerous hotspots in the country (even nurses who had never been on a plane before!).
Texas nurse Anna Slayton, who parted from her family to spend 77 days on the New York frontlines, felt compelled to help, telling DailyNurse, “I ultimately knew it was my duty.” And in April, after flying from Tennessee to a desolate—but noisily grateful—NYC, ED nurse Kirsten Flanery declared, “I made the right decision on coming up here. I’m ready to make a difference!”
Difficult Takes a Day, Impossible Takes a Week
LPN Felicia Shaner and daughters.
Many nurses combine massive multitasking efforts with hard work to pursue their studies, and some fight to overcome dire health and financial obstacles in their quest to start a nursing career. Felicia Shaner was so drawn to the profession that she embarked on her nursing studies while living in a homeless shelter… with a toddler and a baby on board! degrees while working as hospital custodians. Rebel NurseJalil Johnson (of Show me Your Stethoscope fame) had spent his last $5 when he enrolled in an LPN program. And Brianna Fogelman had a lung transplant in her junior year of nursing school and took her nursing finals with a tube in her chest.
Is There a Nurse in the House?
Former CCN/Cardiac Care nurse Hollyanne Milley and spouse.
2020 was also a year in which nurses acted as first responders in unexpected times and places. Pamela Zeinoun saved the lives of three premature infants after the devastating August 4 explosions in Beirut. Indiana trauma nurse Colby Snyder rushed to the assistance of two people who collapsed in public within a 3-week period: the first had a seizure at her grocery store, and the second fell while Snyder was volunteering at the polls on Election Day.
Former CCN/cardiac care nurse Hollyanne Miley (whose husband is Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley) is also a good person to have at hand when out-of-the-blue seizures occur. And VA nurse Maria VanHart impressed “official” first responders by her swift, efficient, and empathic treatment of survivors at the scene of a fatal highway accident.
DailyNurse salutes all of its readers, and all nurses. If you know of someone who warrants a Nurse of the Week nod, send your suggestion to [email protected]. Best wishes for a happier, healthier, evidence-based New Year!
