This issue of Perioperative Nursing Clinics, Guest Edited by Mickey L. Parsons, PhD, MHA, RN, FAAN, and Nancy Girard, PhD, RN, FAAN, will focus on National Quality and Payment Policy: Strategies for Nursing Leadership and Practice, with article topics including: Value Based Purchasing; Leadership and Practice Framework for Success in the Era of Transparency; Evaluating an Innovative Organizational Strategy; Nursing Units as Learning Practice Communities; Healthcare Quality: Implementation of the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) Role; Teaching Nurses to Utilize Dashboards; Understanding the Patient’s Experience; Healthcare Quality and Ethics; and PACU Nurses and Patient Safety Climate.

Midwives and other health care professionals need to have a deep understanding of the various lives childbearing women live in order to support them insightfully and practise in a nuanced manner. The Social Context of Birth has been revised, updated and enlarged to provide an essential understanding of the different lives women live and in which they birth their children. For the first time, it also contains original primary research on the perspectives of student midwives as they progress through their three year training. This comprehensive guide provides countless valuable insights into the many different lives, experiences and expectations of women in their childbearing years in the twenty-first century, especially vulnerable women. Written by a team of highly experienced health professionals, it also covers contentious areas of maternity care, such as new reproductive technologies and fetal surveillance. A true essential for all healthcare professionals who work with women giving birth, such as midwives, nurses, health visitors and obstetricians, and wish to deepen their knowledge of women’s lives.

Perioperative nursing encompasses caring for the patient as a whole being, taking into account physiological, psychological, sociocultural, and spiritual issues. The perioperative nurse is responsible for patient safety throughout the surgery. This issue of Perioperative Nursing Clinics focuses on topics such as essential components for an effective patient safety strategy, initiatives to improve quality and safety in health care, medication error prevention in perioperative services, fire prevention, bloodless surgery and patient safety issues, moderate sedation, and preventative measure to reduce incidence of a retained foreign body.

This issue of Perioperative Nursing Clinics, Guest Edited by Terri Goodman, PhD, RN, CNOR, will focus on Nurse Advocacy, with article topics including: the Nurse advocate; Patient right to safety; Advocacy through public policy; Advocating for patient families; Advocating for Laryngectomy Patients; Advocating for cancer patients; and Advocating for the patient in industry.

This issue of Hand Clinics, guest edited by series consulting editor, Dr. Kevin C. Chung, will focus on Health Policy and Advocacy in Hand Surgery. This issue is one of four issues selected each year by Dr. Chung. Key topics discussed in this issue include, but are not limited to: Impact of Evidence and Health Policy on Hand Surgery Practice; Navigating the Intersection of Evidence and Policy in Hand Surgery Practice; Translating Hand Surgery Evidence into Practice and Policy; Using Evidence for Hand Surgery: How to Practice Evidence-Based Hand Surgery Care; Impact of the Current United States Healthcare Environment on Practice: A Private Practice Viewpoint; Influence of the United States Healthcare Environment and Reform on Academic Healthcare Practice; Leveraging the Electronic Medical Record System to Enhance Hand Surgery Practice; How to Capture Suitable Revenue: Reimbursement and the Current Healthcare Environment with Considerations of Bundled Payments; Evidence-Based Hand Therapy and It's Impact on Health Care Policy; Access to Hand Therapy Following Surgery in United States: Barriers and Facilitators; The Intersection of Hand Surgery Practice and Industry; Establishment of a National Hand Surgery Data Registry; Providing Hand Surgery Care to the Vulnerably Uninsured Patient; Impact of Healthcare Reform on Innovation and Technology; and Health Policy Evaluation in Hand Surgery: Evaluating What Works, among others.

As a contribution to the emerging healthcare quality movement, Patient Advocacy for Healthcare Quality: Strategies for Achieving Patient-Centered Care is distinct from any others of its kind in its focus on the consumer’s perspective and in its emphasis on how advocacy can influence change at multiple social levels. This introductory volume synthesizes patient advocacy from a multi-level approach and is an ideal text for graduate and professional students in schools of public health, nursing and social work.

This issue focuses on the integration of health services research into clinical practice. It provides an overview of the field of health services research for the practicing hand surgeon and highlights pertinent topics that can inform clinical care in any practice setting.