My province has the privilege, albeit a confusing privilege, to have 3 professional nursing associations. We have one to regulate us, and protect the public (College of Nurses of Ontario), one to protect jobs and negotiate labor relations (Ontario Nurses Association, aka our union), and one to represent our professional values (Registered Nurses Association of Ontario). I am a proud support of all three and think they serve incredibly important roles. However, the RNAO is the only membership that is really optional, and many nurses in Ontario and other provinces wonder why I pay $300 a year for my membership. I can tell you many reasons, but today I had one more.

Today I received an email from RNAO called an Action Alert. Basically, an email that there is something a foot. It may be a sexist tv campaign, a new proposed bill to support, or in this case the local Mayor trying to get rid of a transit plan that would affect the health of our city. They summarize the issues, contextualize the debate, and make it as easy as giving your name, postal code, email, and clicking a button to take part in a letter writing campaign. See below for the the summary of arguments.

Now the reason I think this important, is because how many other nursing organizations are able to truly lobby and voice their concerns about issues that are not about nursing jobs or standards or practice. I'm proud to be an RNAO member because they fight for my values as a nurse, now sure there are some small differences, but I'm happy to have an organization that fights for issues of social justice, poverty and environmental issues. In the end they are all health issues, and therefore extremely important to me and my patients.

If you are in Ontario I hope you are a member, if you are not than I hope you can be just as proud of your nursing organizations as I am.

Amplify’d from www.rnao.org

Action Alert to Mayor Ford, Toronto City Councillors, Premier McGuinty, Ontario MPPs with Toronto ridings, and Metrolinx Board of Directors: Save Transit City for a Healthier Toronto

Why Do Nurses Support Transit City?

It’s About Equity: Neighbourhoods in the northeast and northwest of Toronto have the highest and fastest growing percentage of low-income, immigrant, single-parent and children and youth populations. Residents in these neighbourhoods have to travel farther to find employment yet they have the least access to rapid transit. The four light rail transit priority projects would bring transit to more than six times as many low-income residences as the proposed subway extension.

It’s About a Healthier Environment: Public transportation emits 45 to 95 per cent less smog-causing pollution than travel by private vehicles. Transit City will relieve traffic congestion by removing more cars off the road and result in greater reduction of greenhouse gas emissions than the subway option.

It’s About Using Public Funds Responsibly: The proposed subway extension will provide huge capacity trains to a relatively small number of people in only one section of the city. The neighbourhoods the subway would serve do not have a high enough population density to justify this most expensive transit option. Mayor Ford’s desire to seek funding from the private sector to design and build the proposed Sheppard subway extension would ultimately cost the City much more.

Please see below for a comparison chart prepared by the Pembina Institute as well as additional resources on this issue.

What you can do:

Take a few moments to email the letter below to Mayor Ford. A copy will automatically be sent to all Toronto City Councillors, Premier McGuinty, Ontario MPPs with Toronto ridings, and Metrolinx Board of Directors. You are welcome to edit the letter to share insights from your nursing practice and life experiences on why a strong transit system is essential for good health and vibrant communities.

Please share this action alert with your colleagues, neighbours, friends, and family and ask them to endorse this call for action. They are welcome to use the format below and/or they are also welcome to send an email through http://emailthem.ca/transitcity/

The Toronto Environmental Alliance is seeking volunteers to help with this Transit City Campaign to do outreach by phone or in person. More information is available at http://torontoenvironment.org/actioncentre/volunteer/currentpostings Read more at www.rnao.org

As many of you may have guessed, I love and am fascinated by technology, specifically the way that technology can be used in healthcare. One of the places that is the biggest growth opportunity in mobile health, or mHealth. There are so many possibilities, however, in North America and assume much of the developed world there are so many barriers to implementation.

One of the problems with such a robust system is the intolerance and aversion to risk. Reading articles like the one clipped below both excites me and makes me disappointed. Excited seeing the real differences that can and are being made using these technologies, disappointing that it is often in other nations. I often wonder what will it take to get Canada to start to push more aggressively forward in these new areas. To explore mHealth and informatics as rigorously and vigorously as heart transplantation. If we don't, the opportunities will remain in minds of dreamers like myself, which often right beside those that could use it but light years away from being a reality.

Amplify’d from www.scidev.net

Time to get mHealth moving

Using mobile devices to collect and share health data can make healthcare cheaper, faster and more equitable, argues Jody Ranck.

You can't see health data as they flow from clinic to decision-maker — but they are absolutely critical for informing good policies and allocating resources appropriately.

Countless lives are lost each year because of limited access to health information. If an infectious disease breaks out in a remote village, for example, it can take weeks for surveillance data collected on paper to reach central systems — and in that time, the outbreak could have become an epidemic.

But equipped with a mobile phone, a health worker in a remote area can send real-time data on symptoms observed in an outbreak to the health ministry.

Using mobile phones in this way, known as mHealth, can dramatically reduce the damage caused by disease. It can also prevent drug stock-outs and improve patient care.

Developments in modern ICT — moving beyond the computer, fax and landlines to mobile devices — are key to improving the ease and efficiency of health data flows, ultimately giving people greater and more equitable access to health services.

The mobile solution Read more at www.scidev.net

Excited to see in my inbox that Longwoods was publishing a new series on children's health in Canada. So far the articles I read were great, and very interesting to read. Hopefully those of you with interests in peds you can take a look

Amplify’d from www.longwoods.com

The Editor's Letter

Mary Jo Haddad

Enabling child health is the main focus of my career. While I am often inspired by the great strides that have been made in terms of fostering child health, my many encounters with children and their families, healthcare providers and health system policy and decision-makers also make me acutely aware of the significant health-related obstacles young people still confront. Very few – if any – of us are satisfied with the current state of children's health. We know we can do better, and we believe we ought to do more. In order to bring about positive changes for children, we must move swiftly, decisively and in a carefully planned and coordinated manner.

This journal series – Child Health in Canada – was born out of a spirit of collaboration and a fierce determination to improve children's physical and mental well-being. It is also a call to action to address the specific issues that impede children's health. The goals of the series are not tame; its aims are to inform public policy and to improve systems of care across the country and, in so doing, to enhance child health outcomes.

My vision for this series is also anchored in pride and optimism. These feelings arise from working with brilliant, talented and passionate child health experts, individuals who are motivated to improve the lives of children in our communities, schools, homes and hospitals.

Child Health in Canada will be composed of four issues, each one focused on a theme that is critical to the overall subject:

Social determinants of health

Mental health

Health systems performance

Innovation Read more at www.longwoods.com

Sad to see publishers with draw certain countries access when they are still considered low development countries. Sure when a country has clearly cross the finish line and is a developed country remove their right to free journals and allow them to pay for them. However, removing support when they are teetering on the edge just does not seem like the best way to help ensure they will cross that line permanently.

Great to learn about the HINARI initiative, sad to hear that some publishers aren't supporting all the developing countries.

Amplify’d from www.thelancet.com

Bad decisions for global health

Lack of access to knowledge is the main limitation to human development. Since WHO's Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) was launched in 2002, 137 publishers have provided content from 7000 journals free to local, non-profit institutions in 105 eligible countries. In 2010 alone, according to Kimberly Parker (WHO's HINARI programme manager), 400 new journals were added to the network. HINARI offers the opportunity of access to hitherto inaccessible knowledge for the most resource-poor countries in the world.

When news came last week that several large publishers—including Elsevier (our publisher), Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, and Springer—had withdrawn journals from HINARI's Bangladesh programme (and other countries too, such as Kenya and Nigeria, although the full extent of withdrawal remains unclear), there was a collective cry of betrayal. When challenged, one publisher, that of Science, immediately reversed its decision. Unknown to editors at The Lancet, our journals were also part of this withdrawal. Elsevier too, has now reinstated its journals into HINARI for Bangladesh. We welcome that decision. As far as we are aware, neither Springer nor Lippincott Williams & Wilkins have yet restored their earlier withdrawals. Read more at www.thelancet.com

I love these types of articles and love the life lessons embedded in this article. Helps put things in perspective, and give you that mental nudge that helps to reframe life. To see new possibilities and to challenge yourself to be more than average.

Amplify’d from mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong

Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason.

be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror

There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows. What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over. Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions.

Life And How To Survive It

Forget about your life expectancy. After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself.

You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people

. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. Read more at mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com