Denver's Nursing Star is published throughout the Denver metro area. With more than 42,000 weekly readers in print, 3,500 weekly e-subscribers and nearly than 50,000 online each month, Denver's Nursing Star is the largest twice monthly health care publication in Colorado. If you have a news idea, press release, announcements or personnel changes that affect the industry - call 720-283-2209 or email news@denvernursingstar.com COPYRIGHT © 2005 METRO PUBLISHING L.L.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This www.denvernursingstar.com website is owned and operated by METRO PUBLISHING L.L.C. and contains material that is protected by international copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws and unless otherwise specified, is intended for your personal, noncommercial use only. Images and information contained on this site may not be modified, copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted or distributed for commercial use in any way. You may download material from this site and may use this site for personal and non-commercial use, provided all copyright and other proprietary notices remain intact.

Mette Riis, RN, BSN, MSW, at Denver Health started her nursing career on the infection control unit at St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver before it merged with Presbyterian. Photo by Jason P. Smith

Regina Alexander-Reis, bar code medication adiminstration coordinator, right, and Mauri Bunch, RN, stand at the BCMA (Barcode Medication Administration) station, which is used primarily to administer medications, but can also be used for nursing documentation in the medical record, in the surgical unit of the Denver VA Medical Center. Photo by Sarah Sangosti

Laughing with Elizabeth By Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal, RN

Each week we visit with health care professionals throughout the Denver area. If you would like us to visit your facility, please email Crystal White@ www.denvernursingstar.com

Jodee Trainor, RN, MSN, director of acute care services at Parker Adventist Hospital, has been an RN for 33 years and with those years has come a multitude of different work experiences. Photo by Jason P. Smith

The specially trained nursing staff of Swedish Medical Center’s bariatric surgery center are from left to right, back row: Gary Dederichs, RN; Derrick Iglehart, CAN. Left to right, front row: Donna Thompson, RN, charge nurse; Anne Stuart, LPN, unit secretary.

Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast early last week leaving behind not only catastrophic destruction, but many Americans scrambling to find ways to contribute to a disaster relief effort the American Red Cross is calling its largest in history.

Craig Rehabilitation Hospital was awarded "Magnet Designation" in late August by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a distinction that officials called a tribute to the hospital’s nursing staff.

Many hospital pharmacy computer systems may not be doing an adequate job of detecting potentially unsafe medication orders. According to surveys conducted by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), these systems are not reliably detecting and correcting prescription errors or pharmacy order entry errors, and little improvement has occurred over the last six years.