Subject(s)
Critical Care Nursing/standards , Critical Illness/nursing , Patient Transfer/standards , Practice Guidelines as Topic , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Female , Humans , Male , Middle AgedABSTRACT
Building a new hospital is an exciting time. However significant planning is required to prepare staff to assume care of patients in an environment with new workflow changes and new equipment. The challenges of this advanced preparation are compounded when the opening of the new hospital includes the planned move of the inpatient census of patients from an existing hospital to the new hospital. Goals and objectives on the move day include patient and staff safety, with a seamless transition to the new environment. This article describes the experiences and strategies used by an adult inpatient department to successfully open a new hospital.
Subject(s)
Critical Care Nursing/organization & administration , Hospital Design and Construction/methods , Medical-Surgical Nursing/organization & administration , Planning Techniques , Decision Making, Organizational , Efficiency, Organizational , Humans , Patient Safety , WorkflowABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Adult critical care patients in an academic medical center experienced adverse events during intrafacility transport resulting from lack of preparation. An intervention was needed to help keep patients safe during intrafacility transport. OBJECTIVE: To develop a checklist for transport that is easy to use and effective in preparing patients for transport. METHOD: A checklist was developed and implemented. Elements of the checklist include preparation of the patient before transport, screening of patients for criteria that may place them at higher risk during transport, and a checklist for the procedural site. RESULTS: From May 2011 through July 2014, 2506 transports were conducted. Of these, 97.6% (n = 2445) involved no reported complications. CONCLUSION: This tool is suitable for bedside clinicians to use when preparing patients for transport.
Subject(s)
Checklist , Critical Care , Patient Safety , Patient Transfer/methods , Adult , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Patient Transfer/standards , Practice Guidelines as TopicABSTRACT
Enculturation of evidence-based practice (EBP) is a continuing challenge. This article describes a novel pathway for staff development educators to fast track the teaching-learning of the EBP skills set and the immediate full cycle application of the EBP process at point of care. The pathway, called EBP Literacy, offers an asynchronous stepwise approach to learning EBP in an iterative process from the bedside to bench side and back to the bedside.
Subject(s)
Evidence-Based Nursing , Nursing Staff/education , Clinical Competence , Computer-Assisted Instruction/methods , Humans , Internet , Mentors , Models, Nursing , TexasABSTRACT
Published literature on natural disasters describes lessons learned in preparing for disasters, evacuating patients, and caring for patients in the immediate aftermath. Some disasters, however, require longer-term solutions to best meet the health needs of the community during the recovery from the disaster. This article presents an account of one academic medical center's experience in transforming an existing adult burn intensive care unit into an adult and pediatric burn intensive care unit to meet the needs of a community following a hurricane. The process of training 2 groups of specialty nurses and the success of expanding an adult unit are described.
