Critical care nurse
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2021
Awake Self-Prone Positioning: Implementation During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Prone positioning is a well-known beneficial intervention for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, hospitals rapidly adapted prone positioning for acutely ill patients into a new process: awake self-prone positioning. Could a large health care system safely and rapidly implement awake self-prone positioning in COVID-19 units to prevent respiratory failure from progressing among a surge of inpatients? ⋯ Nurses adapted quickly to using awake self-prone positioning as a plan of care for hypoxic patients. This practice may help hospitals adjust care delivery for these patients and effectively maintain patients in non-intensive care units.
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2021
Promoting Early Mobility in Patients After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: An Evidence-Based Protocol.
Aortic stenosis is prevalent among older adults and is commonly treated with transcatheter aortic valve replacement. Both high- and low-risk patients benefit from early mobility and discharge after this procedure; however, hospital protocols to improve patient mobility and shorten hospital stays have not been systematically implemented. ⋯ Implementation of the post-transcatheter aortic valve replacement protocol was associated with significant improvement in overall and postprocedure length of stay and improved quality of life. Additional work is needed to examine strategies to ensure safe next-day discharge.
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2021
Chlorhexidine Gluconate Bathing Program to Reduce Health Care-Associated Infections in Both Critically Ill and Non-Critically Ill Patients.
Critical care nurses take care of patients with complicated, comorbid, and compromised conditions. These patients are at risk for health care-associated infections, which affect patients' lives and health care systems in various ways. ⋯ A comprehensive daily 4% chlorhexidine gluconate bathing program can be implemented with standardized protocols and detailed instructions and can significantly reduce the incidence of health care-associated infections in intensive care unit and non-intensive care unit hospital settings.
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Critical care nurse · Oct 2021
Targeted Temperature Management Protocol in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Quality Improvement Project.
In patients with acute neurological injury, abrupt temperature change exacerbates increased intracranial pressures and negatively affects perfusion pressure and cerebral blood flow. Critical care nurses must provide coordinated and effective interventions to maintain normothermia without precipitating shivering immediately after acute neurological injury in pediatric patients. ⋯ Creation and implementation of a targeted temperature management protocol increased nurses' documented use of body surface cooling to manage hyperthermia in pediatric intensive care unit patients with acute neurological injury.
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The development of the Critical Care Beacon Collaborative to achieve meaningful recognition. ⋯ The Critical Care Beacon Collaborative resulted in a Beacon Award for each unit and important staff outcomes. This article describes the organization, the process before the Critical Care Beacon Collaborative convened and the desired state, and the methods used to achieve our goal. It also discusses unit- and service-level stakeholder involvement. The successes, lessons learned, sustainability, and growth of the Critical Care Beacon Collaborative are shared to assist readers who aspire to pursue a Beacon Award.