Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing
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Review
The relationship between emergency department crowding and patient outcomes: a systematic review.
Emergency department (ED) crowding is a significant patient safety concern associated with poor quality of care. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess the relationship between ED crowding and patient outcomes. ⋯ This review details the negative patient outcomes associated with ED crowding. Study results are relevant to medical professionals and those that seek care in the ED.
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One of the most commonly performed task in the emergency department (ED) is reported as the monitoring of vital signs, yet there are no published standards of care that provide guidelines for the frequency of obtaining vital signs in the ED. The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine the frequency of documentation of vital signs recorded during ED visits across Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities. ⋯ It seems unlikely that vital signs are not monitored in the ED; nurses anecdotally report that vital signs are recorded on a paper chart and later scanned as an image into the EHR. However, lack of consistent process in documentation of vital signs may decrease the care team's ability to note early warning signs of physiological instability or deterioration.
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To describe quality of life (QoL) in the year following minor injury and to test the hypothesis that individuals with depression in the postinjury year experience lower QoL than do individuals with no depression. ⋯ The findings of this study show that patients who have injuries that are treated and discharged from an emergency department can have significantly lower QoL in the year after that injury that is attributed, in part, to postinjury depression. Nurses should provide anticipatory guidance to patients that they may experience feelings of sadness or being "blue," and that if they do, they should seek care.
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This study investigates the effect of personal characteristics and organizational factors on nurses' intention to report for work in a national emergency. ⋯ This study makes an important contribution to research on the importance of perceived self-efficacy in the context of disaster planning.