Critical care nurse
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Critical care nurse · Feb 2020
Preventing Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
Catheter-associated urinary tract infections are common health care-associated infections and have been associated with increased mortality, morbidity, length of stay, and cost. Prevention strategies are grouped into bundles focused on reducing unnecessary catheter use and promptly removing urinary catheters. Before intervention in the study institution, no urinary catheters were unnecessarily used and compliance with the catheter-associated urinary tract infection bundle was 84%. ⋯ Targeted rounding for pediatric patients with an indwelling urinary catheter is an effective and sustainable strategy to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections. The ease of implementation for this intervention lends itself to generalizability to other patient populations.
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Critical care nurse · Feb 2020
Randomized Controlled TrialEffect of Eye Masks on Pain and Sleep Quality in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Impaired sleep is a common complaint among patients undergoing major surgery and may be a contributing factor in postoperative pain. The provision of eye masks to patients after cardiac surgery may reduce postoperative pain through improvements in sleep quality. ⋯ Nocturnal eye masks are a simple, low-risk, low-cost intervention that may contribute to reductions in perceived pain in cardiac surgery patients.
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Critical care nurse · Feb 2020
Protecting Patient Safety and Preventing Modifiable Complications After Acute Ischemic Stroke.
Protecting patient safety and preventing modifiable complications after acute ischemic stroke. ⋯ Stroke physiology and stroke-specific interventions that can enable nurses to reduce the risk of falls, dysphagia, malnutrition, dehydration, altered glucose metabolism, device-related infections, aspiration pneumonia, delirium, and depression.
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Critical care nurse · Feb 2020
Nursing Management of Patients Requiring Acute Mechanical Circulatory Support Devices.
The growing use of acute mechanical circulatory support devices to provide hemodynamic support that has accompanied the increasing prevalence of heart failure and cardiogenic shock, despite significant improvement in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction. ⋯ Nursing considerations regarding the intra-aortic balloon pump, the TandemHeart, the Impella, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.