Today in the chart

Have you ever found yourself lost in a sea of emails in the morning? Personal messages, marketing campaigns, spam, updates on your latest Amazon Prime purchase—each day, our inboxes are flooded with countless communications. 

Enter The Nursing Beat.

The Nursing Beat isn’t just another email to create digital chaos in your inbox. It’s a first-of-its-kind nursing newsletter specializing in digestible, entertaining, and informative nursing news. 

If you’re already a subscriber, you might have noticed that The Nursing Beat has a new look. Here’s what’s new and why the TNB team made the changes. 

1. Filling the Gaps of Other Media

Barring a specific nursing specialty, when the general public thinks of nursing skills, they often think of one word: communication.

Nurses have honed the craft of therapeutic communication, re-explaining what the doctor said to their patients and actively listening to their patient’s needs. But who is communicating therapeutically with them? There are a few ways to get nursing communication and news. Let’s dive into some of the available options.

‍Traditional Media

Pro: You can see how the general public perceives a nursing issue. 

Con: Sometimes, traditional media misses the issue’s pulse or root, and nurses often do not write the content.‍

Nursing Specific Media and News Sites

Pro: These sites offer great deep dives into current events in nursing. 

Con: The content is long-form, taking more time to read and only tackling one news story at a time. ‍

Social Media

Pro: Social media is filled with fantastic nurse creators and healthcare advocates that create catchy, informative content. 

Con: It isn’t easy to filter social media to simultaneously see all the most recent nursing news. 

The Nursing Beat wanted to bridge the gap between some of the cons nurses experience in other media types. With the TNB daily newsletter, you can see all the most relevant nursing news at once, with citations to credible sources if you want to learn more. Plus, TNB is crafted explicitly by nurses, for nurses. 

TNB is curated with:

• Content creators and subject matter experts: You can learn about nurses and other people with diverse knowledge and experiences. 

• Resources: Whether you want to learn more, check out a government program, or find nursing must-haves, TNB has you covered.

• Top news stories: Say goodbye to searching “nursing news” on Google News and getting spotty and outdated results. ‍

2. Improving the Daily News Experience

There’s nothing better than a half-eaten cold pepperoni pizza left in the break room, right? TNB doesn’t think so, either. TNB believes that nurses are overdue for a luxury experience with their daily briefings; If your lunch isn’t catered to you, at least your news is. 

Here is an overview of what changes were made:

• Cultivating eye-popping visuals and clean graphic design

• Paragraphs designed with readability in mind

• Photos of content creators next to their Beat so that you can put a face to the name

• Formatting that walks you through the news parallel to the timeline of a nursing shift (more on that below)

Revisiting some of the TNB archives, here is an overview of the previous layout:

• Introduction

• Morning Brief 

• Community Picks

• Daily Diversion

• One Big Number

The updated TNB newsletter cadence follows a nurse through their shift. The layout looks like this:

• Huddle: The TNB staff updates you on what you can expect from the daily news, what stories to pay attention to, or any helpful or hopeful tidbits. 

• Handoff: TNB relays the top news stories for the day to you, with citations available for you to learn more. 

• Today’s Top Vital: A statistic relevant to health or wellness for you to remember or use to make small talk with coworkers later.

• PRN: Rotating columns from nurse experts you love, like Diana Page, Emma Geiser, and Nurse Manny, as well as special guest columnists like Irnise Williams.

• Today In The Chart: Internal blog posts (like this one) written by TNB content creators.

• Supply Room: Thinking about treating yourself or a coworker? TNB features a daily product must-have. From compression stockings, to bubble baths, to vacation reads, this supply room is fully stocked. 

• The Beat with Nurse Kel: Curated music and podcast playlists that launch every Friday.

• Break Room: Before you go, TNB leaves you with a wild or funny beat.

• Discharge Instructions: This is a friendly reminder that TNB will greet you every weekday.‍

3. Elevating Short-Form Content

How much of the content you consume today is bite-sized? Even The New York Times has a daily newsletter because people just aren’t reading pages of news every day.

Before the TNB rebrand, the daily newsletters were about 1,000 words long, which takes the average adult about five minutes to read. For context, here is the length of content for the top short-form content platforms right now:

• Instagram Reel: 90 seconds

• YouTube Short: 60 seconds

• TikTok: Three minutes

The average TNB newsletter is nearly cut in half, clocking in around 600 words. This takes about 2.5 minutes to read, nestled in between the time it would take to view an Instagram Reel or one TikTok. Although it isn’t easy to pare top news into less than 200 words per column, the TNB editing staff does so meticulously. ‍

See You Q.D., M-F!

Tamara AL-Yassin, MBA, BSN, RN, CEN, PHN, the CEO, and Hannah Berns, MHCI, BSN, RN, CEN, CPEN, TCRN, the COO of The Nursing Beat, say their goal is to “be a microphone for all types of nurses.” During your daily TNB read, they hope you’ll find a gem of information to take with you, whether you work bedside, behind the scenes, or want to support the nurses in your life. 

In the healthcare field, where everything is blue, dry, and sterile, nurses deserve a warm, funny, snarky, and diverse newsletter, just like they are,” explain AL-Yassin and Berns.

These changes are for you! If you haven’t already, subscribe to The Nursing Beat. Already a TNB frequent flier? Check out the referral program to see how spreading the word can get you exclusive prizes.