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This article summarizes experience and outcomes for a large, faith-based health system on a journey to ensure that its nearly 29 000-person nurse workforce has the foundational academic preparation to deliver superior, compassionate, and future-focused nursing care. The health system's bachelor of science in nursing completion strategy is summarized, including (a) programmatic structure, (b) curriculum themes, (c) participant experience, and (d) outcomes. Executive leadership's commitment and engagement are highlighted.

Traditional preoperative education programs have demonstrated the beneficial effects for orthopaedic patients. However, attending preoperative education classes became too difficult for patients, their families, and their friends who traveled great distances from their homes in rural Kentucky. A multidisciplinary continuous quality improvement team from University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center created a pilot project to provide preoperative education programs for their total joint patients via an interactive telehealth network. The use of telecommunications technology in providing patient preoperative health education was successful in attracting patients from remote areas who otherwise may not have participated. The program has continued for 2 years.

Although not always well understood, humor and laughter have therapeutic applications for both the critical care nurse and the patient. This article explores the topic of humor as it relates to the practice of critical care nursing: as a coping strategy for combatting job-related stress for the practitioner, and as a therapeutic nursing intervention to be used with patients and families. It also presents sample clinical applications of humor in critical care. Since nursing managers set the tone and atmosphere for the unit, fostering appropriate humor is both the nurse manager's responsibility and the clinician's responsibility.