Journal of emergency nursing : JEN : official publication of the Emergency Department Nurses Association
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Vital signs can result in an upgrade of patients' Emergency Severity Index (ESI) levels. It is therefore preferable to obtain vital signs early in the triage process, particularly for ESI level 3 patients. Emergency departments have an opportunity to redesign triage processes to meet required protocols while enhancing the quality and experience of care. ⋯ Performing activities in parallel reduces flow time with no additional resources. Staff involvement in process planning, redesign, and control ensures engagement and early buy-in. One should anticipate how changes to one process might affect other processes.
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Emergency department nurses are faced with an overwhelming number of patients each day. The average number of emergency department visits is increasing by 3.5% per year. Numerous studies have been conducted to improve the patient throughput process, which has impact on patient flow. A disruption of the process can cause a backlog of patients and create a hardship for both patients and staff. ⋯ The quality initiative team made several recommendations based on the research of a flow nurse coordinator. The recommendations included a weekly ED staffing committee meeting, consisting of frontline ED staff, nurse educators, ED leadership, and flow nurse coordinator. The support and active involvement of the executive leadership team would assist in sustaining changes to the new process.
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False-positive blood-culture results due to skin contamination of samples remain a persistent problem for health care providers. Our health system recognized that our rates of contamination across the 4 emergency department campuses were above the national average. ⋯ This unique collection system can reduce the risk of blood culture contamination significantly and is designed to augment, rather than replace, the standard phlebotomy protocol already in use in most health care settings.