[New trends in emergency nursing: disaster nursing at National Cheng Kung University Hospital].

Disasters, natural and man made, devastate individuals and society through severe injury, death, property damage, public health problems, and later psychological issues. Emergency nurses are often the first professionals to arrive at the scene of a disaster incident. As such, they must be equipped with knowledge and skills related to disaster management. Training for disaster preparedness has become an important trend for emergency nurses in order to respond immediately to various disasters and to crisis management needs. The purposes of this article were to (1) describe concepts, knowledge and skills related to disaster nursing and (2) describe the disaster nursing experience and training content / protocol of emergency nurses working at the National Cheng Kung University Hospital in Taiwan. Issues related to training, work assignments, practical training, and staff management are also discussed.

Evaluation of a telephone call service for ambulatory surgery patients in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of a telephone call service (TCS) for ambulatory surgery patients. Three outcomes were evaluated: patient satisfaction, patients' perceptions of the value of a TCS intervention, and nurses' perceptions of difficulties in implementing it. The results indicated that patients were satisfied with the TCS intervention and were positive about its value. Nurses indicated that the main difficulties in implementing the TCS were their lack of knowledge in answering patients' questions and time limitations.