Featured Nurse Leader
Josie Howard-Ruben, RN, MS, AOCN, CHPN
Making systems change at Advocate Health Care in northern Illinois.
Josie Howard-Ruben, RN, MS, AOCN, CHPN, is taking charge on issues of
tobacco control in her hospital system. Motivated by taking care of lung
cancer patients during a twenty-year nursing career, she wants to see
nurses get more involved in helping patients to quit smoking. Thinking
back to her days treating patients afflicted by tobacco-related diseases,
Josie noted that “there was not much guidance on tobacco control
for nurses at the time and I felt uncomfortable addressing cessation issues
with these very ill patients or their families.” She felt the imperative
to do more, and in the past few years has undertaken some new initiatives.
In her role as a clinical development specialist at Advocate Health Care,
an eight-hospital system based in the greater Chicago area, she has developed
a continuing education training module on tobacco cessation counseling
for the nurses in the health care system. She is also conducting a study
to test the efficacy of various delivery modes for her training module
(classroom versus web), along with several other co-investigator advanced
practice nurses (Jean Mau, MSN, APRN, BC; Uta Tichawa, RN, MSN; and, Carrie
May, MS, APN/CNP). Josie presented this work, as part of a Tobacco Free
Nurses panel, at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in
May in Chicago. In addition, Josie has worked with Advocate Health Care
to provide links on their intranet to resources like the Tobacco Free
Nurses website (www.tobaccofreenurses.org), which nurses and patients
can use in tobacco cessation.
Right now, most of her activities center on nurses but she hopes to engage
other members of the health care team in tobacco cessation. Her aim is
to “impact how people perceive their role in tobacco cessation because
we all have a role to play. Even the volunteers at the hospital entrance
have a role to play in smoking cessation. They are the ones that smokers
ask where smoking is allowed. Yet, no one thinks to involve them in smoking
cessation initiatives.” Her long-term plans include offering computer-based
training about the importance of tobacco cessation to all hospital employees.
She believes in providing hospital employees who smoke with smoking cessation
options as many hospitals are becoming smoke-free.
She advises nurses to step up to the plate on tobacco control and plans
to continue educating nurses about tobacco cessation. Ms. Howard-Ruben
believes that, “nurses have a legitimate role to play in tobacco
cessation but they don’t always know how to intervene. Unfortunately,
lack of training on tobacco cessation leaves nurses without the tools
they need to make an impact on tobacco cessation.” She wants nurses
to understand that helping patients to quit smoking can have a significant
economic impact since it is the single most important step to reducing
healthcare costs in the United States.
View Previous Featured Nurse Leaders
- Gregory Howard, LPN
- Mila C. Velasquez, MN, RN, CS, APRN, BC
- Terri Roberts, J.D., R.N.
- Cynthia Hornberger, RN, MBA, PhD
- Josie Howard-Ruben, RN, MS, AOCN, CHPN
- Janie Heath PhD, APRN-BC, ANP, ACNP
- Mary Ellen Wewers, RN, PhD, MPH, FAAN
- Linda Sarna, RN, DNSc, FAAN
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