Home health care nurses should maintain and improve the functional ability of patients, as this could improve the QOL of these patients.

We aimed to determine the acceptability and feasibility of a pentablet-based software program, PAINReportIt Ò -Plus, as a means for patients with cancer in home hospice to report their symptoms and differences in acceptability by demographic variables. Of the 131 participants (mean age ¼ 59 AE 13, 58% women, 48.1% African American), 44% had never used a computer, but all participants easily used the computerized tool and reported an average computer acceptability score of 10.3 AE 1.8, indicating high acceptability. Participants required an average of 19.1 AE 9.5 minutes to complete the pain section, 9.8 AE 6.5 minutes for the medication section, and 4.8 AE 2.3 minutes for the symptom section. The acceptability scores were not statistically different by demographic variables but time to complete the tool differed by racial=ethnic groups. Our findings demonstrate that terminally ill patients with cancer are willing and able to utilize computer pentablet technology to record and describe their pain and other symptoms. Visibility of pain and distress is the first step necessary for the hospice team to develop a care plan for improving control of noxious symptoms.

The Easley-Storfjell Instruments for Caseload/Workload Analysis have been used successfully by home health managers to document the type quantity, and complexity of services provided by clinicians, teams, and the entire nursing staff. By measuring both the time requirements and complexity of interventions, these tools have been useful in assigning cases, managing caseloads and workloads establishing benchmarks, and monitoring productivity. Directions for use of these tools and examples are provided.

Radiofrequency identification data technology was found to provide feasible and accurate means for capturing and evaluating nursing time spent in patient rooms. Depending on the outcomes per unit, leaders should work with staff to maximize patient care time.

Theoretically, the focus of community health nursing is the community; however, the nature of the practice has not been well documented. The purpose of this study was to develop a community-focused model by identifying appropriate behaviors and activities for staff-level community health nurses. A l i s t of suggested behaviors and activities was compiled by means of brainstorming sessions and sent to a sample of community health nursing administrators, educators, and staff nu= in Michigan. Responses were analyzed using nonmetric multidimensional scaling techniques to uncover and define the primary underlying dimensions of perceived community-focused practice of community health nursing. Three specific regions were identified and labeled:(1) client-oriented services; (2) aggregate needs identification; and (3) aggregate planning and intervention. These regions (concepts) have been illustrated graphically in a proposed model for community focused nursing entitled the S-C model. In addition, discrepancies among the three respondent groups were identified.