dialysis nursing orientation pathway

ABSTRACT

End stage renal disease [ESED] patients in Egypt account for 10380 for the year [1999] and undergoing hemodialysis treatment. Nephrology nurses play a critical role in providing high quality care to dialysis patients, and help renal patients along the read to rehabilitation. However, number of problems are the potentially life threatening that may occur as a result of mechanical or technical failure or nursing, technician or physician error. To minimize the possibility of the occurrence clinical pathway seem to be the answer. This study aims to implement a clinical pathway for dialysis patients. The study was conducted in the new dialysis unit. The unit with a total capacity of 14 beds. The sample comprised 8 nurses and 17 patients. Four instruments were used in this study knowledge test, skill assessment check list related to dialysis, patients assessment tool and clinical dialysis pathway. There was statistical significance difference in the knowledge between before and after dialysis pathway. There was a negative significant correlation as detected for the areas related to hand washing, cleaning and discarding of waste materials, handling infected patients and blood, psychological aspect, and team management coordination Also, significant statistical difference was found between before and after implementation of clinical pathway regarding nurses performance. It was noted that the incidence of hemodialysis complications were decreased after 3 months of dialysis pathway. It can be recommended that 1. Clinical pathway should be applied in all aspect in nursing. 2. The interrelatedness of patients care be clearly proven and demonstrated to all health team members, and. The medical directors be the leader of the continuous quality improvement process when the physician participates and is involved with the process, all the members of the renal team tend to perform better