Dynamics (Pembroke, Ont.)
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Dynamics (Pembroke, Ont.) · Jan 2007
The standardization of critical care nursing education and training: strategies for advancing clinical practice in Ontario's adult ICUs.
In 2004/2005, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) launched a critical care transformation strategy with a goal to enhance service delivery through improved access, quality and system resource management. Health human resources planning was seen as essential to the success of the strategy, particularly recruitment, education/training and retention of critical care nurses. A nursing task group was invited to articulate core competencies and practice standards that can be applied across Ontario's adult ICUs and to make recommendations for implementation and the training needed to encourage compliance with the initiative. In this article, the opportunity to position nursing within the Ontario MOHLTC vision is described, as well as the work undertaken to prepare for a province-wide approach to critical care nursing education and training.
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Dynamics (Pembroke, Ont.) · Jan 2005
ReviewThe role of the critical care nurse in improving quality of life in ICU survivors.
In ICU survivors, QOL is a dynamic term that identifies to what extent a critical illness has affected one's life. As an outcome measure, QOL has been studied in ICU survivors over the last few years. Researchers suggest that QOL is poor following ICU admission, and identify specific QOL issues that ICU survivors deal with, mostly related to physical functioning. The critical care nurse's role is to better QOL by improving the ICU survivor's transition into the post-ICU period through improved mobility, good management of sedation, pain, sleep and, most importantly, discharge planning.
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Hypothermia can result from exposure to a cold environment (e.g., accidental drowning) or it can be induced and used as a brain protection strategy (e.g., therapeutic hypothermia). One common ECG presentation with hypothermia is the J wave, which is related to the altered cellular activities during hypothermia. A case study is used in this article to illustrate the presentation of a J wave with a patient experiencing hypothermia.