Media Release

11 May 2012

West Coast Nurses and Midwives celebrate International Nurses’ Day

The West Coast DHB will be celebrating International Nurses’ Day, May 12 with a series of presentations by nurses based on the theme Closing the Gap: from Evidence to Action on Friday May 11.

Nurses are ideally situated to improve health outcomes and service delivery by addressing challenges such as health inequalities and poor access. By using research and evidence based practice, nurses are able to change the way health care is provided and evaluate the outcomes.

In Greymouth three nurses will give presentations on the specialist areas of work that they are involved in. Kay Bone will present "Professional Development Recognition Programme (PDRP) and Capsule Endoscopy”, where patients swallow a specialised capsule that contains a camera for looking at a patient’s digestive tract..

Wendy Hawkins will present "Transforming Resuscitation Theory into Practice", where strategies to put the research behind resuscitation into practice to improve patient outcomes will be explained and Jo-ella Marshall presenting "PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) Quicks", an informative poster to aid nurses when they insert these specialised intravenous lines.

Nurses from other areas of the Coast will be able to videoconference into Grey Base Hospital for the presentations.

Nurses on the West Coast are actively engaged in research activity both leading and participating in research to generate evidence to inform practice and lead service innovation.

Two current examples of these are a research project into the use of telehealth, and a research project investigating the value of the nurse practitioner in rural and remote health.

International Nurses’ Day has been celebrated on May 12 since 1974. The date is the birthday of Florence Nightingale whose hard work and commitment during the Crimean War helped improve nursing and healthcare standards which significantly reduced death rates among the soldiers.

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