Critical care nurse
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2020
Case ReportsHiding in Plain Sight: Peripheral Intravenous Catheter Infections.
This article presents an overview of the burden of peripheral intravenous catheter infections and current evidence-based recommendations for prevention. ⋯ This article reviews the significant burden of peripheral intravenous catheter infections, barriers to effective peripheral intravenous catheter management, and current evidence-based recommendations to prevent this source of patient harm.
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2020
Perspectives of Pediatric Providers on Patients With Complex Chronic Conditions: A Mixed-Methods Sequential Explanatory Study.
Children with complex chronic conditions present unique challenges to the pediatric intensive care unit, including prolonged length of stay, complex medical regimens, and complicated family dynamics. ⋯ Pediatric intensive care unit health care providers' perspectives of pediatric patients with complex chronic conditions indicated opportunities to refine the care provided by establishing daily goals, coordinating discharge planning, and creating occasions for close communication between patients, families, and providers.
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Sepsis is a critical illness that requires early detection and intervention to prevent disability and/or death. ⋯ In this study, greater nurse staffing and intensivist hours were associated with significantly lower rates of sepsis, whereas greater physician staffing and hospitalist hours were associated with significantly higher rates. Further research is needed to understand the roles of the various types of providers and the reasons for their differing effects on sepsis rates.
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2020
Report on the Third International Intensive Care Unit Diary Conference.
Many patients in intensive care units have frightening experiences and memories and subsequent post-intensive care syndrome, with psychiatric morbidity including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Intensive care unit diaries, written by staff members and families, support patients' understanding of what occurred and may alleviate their psychological suffering. ⋯ Conference presentations included intensive care unit-related experiences of patients and families, psychosocial aspects of post-intensive care syndrome, the evolution of diaries, implementation strategies for intensive care unit diaries, special topics (eg, legal issues, electronic vs handwritten diaries, pediatric diaries, and time of handover), and psychosocial recovery.