Nothing is more important to the patient’s outcome than properly performed chest compressions.
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Nothing is more important to the patient’s outcome than properly performed chest compressions.
The complicated case of a retiree with a newly diagnosed lung tumor kicks off our new “Case Study” department.
Stevens-Johnson syndrome has a 15% mortality rate. For one patient, accurate assessment of this rare skin condition led to a full recovery.
When a 2 acuity rating isn’t truly a 2
Stop life-threatening pneumothorax with quick thinking and action.
With quick thinking and immediate action, you can save this patient.
Alert clinicians take immediate steps to eliminate a life threatening epidural hematoma.
Our evolving understanding of how blood loss causes shock is changing trauma resuscitation methods.
A new study finds that ED diversion is associated with increased mortality.
The patient thinks she knows what’s causing her chest pain. Her nurse knows she must rule out myocardial infarction.
What seems like a simple pulled muscle to a shipping clerk turns out to be cauda equina syndrome, a potentially paralyzing injury that warrants immediate surgery.
More than 1 million Americans a year suffer a myocardial infarction (MI). This article tells you how – and how quickly – you need to respond to the most dangerous MI.
When a patient begins to vomit bright red blood, a nurse relies on his knowledge of Mallory-Weiss tears-and the adroit interventions of the rapid response team.
For one nurse, taking pictures of preemies develops into an art form.
Saving a patient’s life may rest on recognizing which findings are red herrings and which hold the key to the crisis.
ANA brings nurses, experts together to shape practice policy during disasters
A new document created by ANA and other groups delineates emergency care principles for psychiatric patients.
Do you routinely instill normal saline solution into endotracheal tubes before suctioning? Use only the Glasgow Coma Scale for neurologic assessment? Evidence on these and other sacred cows of nursing practice might surprise you.
This technique slowly removes wastes and excess plasma water, helping patients recover from their illness.
Why critically ill patients with acute renal failure need continuous renal replacement therapy.
Dog bites can cause serious or even fatal injuries. Find out how to assess and intervene when your patient has been bitten.
Dog bites can cause serious or even fatal injuries. Find out how to assess and intervene when your patient has been bitten.
The authors share how they defused horizontal violence in their ED.
Thanks to an alert nurse, an elderly patient avoids respiratory failure during her recovery from hip fracture surgery.
When a dehydrated patient falls into a stupor and her vital signs head south, a rapid response team can help unit nurses stabilize her quickly – and avoid the semmingly inevitable.
Early recognition and action can save a limb.
Pulmonary embolism (PE) kills about 25% of those it strikes. This article explains how deep vein thrombosis (DVT) sets the stage for PE and describes how to assess, manage, and prevent both DVT and PE.
Pulmonary embolism (PE) kills about 25% of those it strikes. This article explains how deep vein thrombosis (DVT) sets the stage for PE and describes how to assess, manage, and prevent both DVT and PE.
A patient who collapsed at home arrives at the hospital with a blood glucose level off the charts, plus extreme thirst and polyuria. Think his diagnosis is cut and dried? Think again.
When a patient’s O2 Sat falls and subcutaneous neck edema arises, adroit troubleshooting identifies the cause.
Thousands of accidental chemical spills and leaks take place in this country each year. Providing nurses with adequate first-receiver training can help ensure that we can care for contaminated patients without endangering ourselves.
The president of the Emergency Nurses Association tells why she’s proud to be an emergency nurse.
What happens when there is no room in the ICU for an ED patient?
Rapid response isn’t just for staff. More hospitals are allowing, even encouraging, patients and their families to make the call for help.
When the family wants to be with the patient, this advice will help you guide the conversation and manage the situation.
Effective communication enables nurses and physicians to negotiate a collaborative decision that honors the family’s wishes.
Without effective treatment, more than 40% of frostbite
victims require digital amputation. Can Jonathan’s toes
be saved?
A staff nurse gives his perspective on this important report.
When excessive blood loss during delivery threatens a mother’s life, quick assessment, effective interventions, and expert aid from the rapid response team maneuver her postpartum course back onto a normal track.
Stroke signs and symptoms vary with the affected blood vessel. Here’s what you need to know when assessing suspected stroke victims.
Looking for more information on evidence-based practices? Read this first article in a series from the National Institute of Nursing Research.
Learn how this tool helped an ICU analyze and correct flaws in its patient-education process
The author explains not the Newborn Scale of Sepsis she developed helps nurses quantify the clinical signs and laboratory markers of severe bacterial infection.
Create a protocol for this lifesaving intervention at your facility.
Should patients receive neuromuscular blockers while mechanical ventilation is withdrawn?
Patients with stable chronic heart failure may suddenly start decompensating. Do you know how to recognize this condition and help avert organ failure?
A type of dialysis, MARS removes toxins and replaces
lost liver functions.
Creating a critical-care resource nurse role has helped one hospital
ensure that critically ill patients get the same level of care no
matter where they’re admitted.
Pharmacomechanical thrombectomy removes dangerous clots to restore healthy function in hours.
Nurses from Montgomery Regional Hospital describe their role in treating patients from the Virginia Tech disaster.
A patient complains of bloating, abdominal tenderness, and constipation. Nothing unusual? Maybe. But if you’re too quick to dismiss these symptoms, you could be overlooking a serious condition called Ogilvie’s syndrome.
A thoroughly rational approach to the most frightening of seizures.
Standard of care in the ICU – or object of overuse, abuse, and misuse? The authors explain why they believe PA catheter use may harm more critically ill patients than it helps.
Despite recent gains in treating pulmonary arterial hypertension, a cure is a long way off. Diagnosis and therapy can be tricky, and prognosis remains poor. Still, there are ways nurses can help slow disease progression and improve quality of life for a child with this condition.
Suspect polymyalgia in patients who continue to decline after treatment for pericardial effusion.
Patients with traumatic brain injuries can suffer from this syndrome for months or even years after injury.
ICU stays can cause physical and cognitive problems for years after discharge. Find out how to improve patient outcomes.
Our Editor-in-Chief tells the story of her experience as a patient.
A recent stroke, a history of hypertension and renal disease, and a sudden surge in blood pressure alert caregivers to a patient’s hypertensive urgency.
Avoid multiple organ failure with early monitoring and early intervention.
Rodney, age 47, was admitted to the hospital 2 days ago with rib and femur fractures and facial contusions. He appears well nourished and well groomed.
I.V. fluids should help a dehydrated patient, but for one with a history of atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease, they could contribute to pulmonary edema. For Grace Johnson, quick assessment and action staved off a poor outcome.
Follow the signs and symptoms to this unusual source of life-threatening bleeding.
Four in 10 victims die immediately. For those who make it to the ED alive, survival hinges on the healthcare team’s ability to promptly recognize aortic dissection.
For a postoperative laminectomy patient, sudden left-sided weakness and sensation loss warrant a STAT return to the OR.
Saving a patient from sudden death starts with recognizing the dangerous ventricular arrythmia that precedes it.
How one community hospital dealt with the twin problems of a saturated emergency department and ambulance diversions.
Experts say registered nurses who work in hospital emergency departments are at greater risk of violence from patients than nurses in other specialties.
Learn more about this dangerous disease in children.
While hiking, Paul Sawyer, age 31, is bitten twice on the right hand by a rattlesnake. When he arrives at the emergency department (ED), the team obtains STAT laboratory tests, including a complete blood count, prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin time, fibrinogen, fibrin, chemistry panel, blood typing and crossmatch, urinalysis, and urine myoglobin.
Sepsis can show up in any setting. So even if you don’t work in a critical care unit, you need to know how to detect it. This article describes warning signs that should arouse your suspicion.
The team scrambles to save a patient with diabetes.
Nurses play a significant role in helping patients to get the sleep they need.
How to get going in this exciting specialty.
The swift response of the healthcare team helps a patient avoid the most devastating effects of a stroke.
Rising intracranial pressure calls for fast action.
When a patient shows signs of systemic inflammatory response syndrome, her survival hinges on the nurse’s expert assessment skills and the clinical team’s swift interventions.
By obtaining a thorough history and conducting a careful assessment, you can help patients avoid this condition.
For a patient with chronic heart failure, failure to take prescribed diuretics triggers a perilous chain of events
The rapid response team works quickly to try to prevent fetal injury.
Nursing vigilance helps a patient with chronic obstructive oulmonary disease stave off respiratory failure.
WEB EXCLUSIVE! A monthly round-up of clinical and practice news and alerts.
How one rapid response team prevents cardiac arrest and provides other life-saving benefits outside the ICU.
Protect your ARDS patients from danger with perfusion, positioning, protective lung ventilation, protocol weaning, and prevention of complications.
Nurses know best when it comes to care coordination.
As a patient deteriorates, assessment and history findings guide
clinicians to the right diagnosis and interventions.
Sleep doesn’t come easily for ICU patients. Many suffer chronic sleep deprivation, which can raise stress levels, depress immune responses, and impair wound healing. To help them sleep, some ICU’s are enforcing regular quite times.
The nurse’s high index of suspicion helps halt a life-threatening emergency.
When a patient’s blood pressure goes stratospheric, the first priority is to check for signs of organ damage.
Move over, Glasgow. There’s a new coma scoring tool in town.
Child-abuse cases can be the mot difficult ones for nurses to cope with. But with the right knowledge and tools, you can care for abused children more effectively.
Learn how one unit implemented their project, including outcomes and how to overcome barriers.
We may not realize it, but most nurses have frequent contact with domestic abuse victims. Shame and fear of reprisal keep many victims from reporting the problem. Caregivers’ discomfort with the topic or unfamiliarity with its signs and symptoms can lead to missed opportunities to identify and help victims.
Leah Curtin discusses the effects of whistleblowing on nurses’ lives
Continuous pulse oximetry monitoring immediately alerts clinicians to hypoxemia in unstable critically ill patients, so they can intervene before tissue hyposia sets in.
Please share your feedback! We’re interested to learn more about your experience with American Nurse Journal.