This innovative model has helped reduce falls and pressure ulcers, and RN turnover rates have dropped as well.
When a 2 acuity rating isn’t truly a 2
This electronic tool keeps patients and families informed on key aspects of care.
Anaphylaxis can kill within minutes unless the victim receives immediate treatment. Calling a rapid response team to the scene can avert disaster.
An antibiotic infusion triggers a near-fatal reaction.
Sleep apnea causes sleep deprivation and, over time,
can lead to serious physiologic changes.
Tired of unproductive staff meetings held at inconvenient times? Had it up to here with being interrupted when trying to express your opinion? Maybe it’s time to explore alternatives to the traditional in-person meeting. One hospital unit did just that, and their online meeting forum helped them create new protocols in record time.
Nurses are with patients during some of the most important moments in their lives.
How should nurses dress? Should you wear a white uniform? Is jewelry appropriate on the job? A survey reveals what patients really think.
ANA signs a letter of concern about proposed creation of an Office of the National Nurse.
Increase your ability to recognize aortic aneurysms and provide postop care.
For one nurse, taking pictures of preemies develops into an art form.
Go "behind the curtain" to learn how simulation is being used to prepare hospital-based nurses for urgent situations.
Many nurses don’t like to hear their patients called “customers” or be told to provide “customer service.” This expert explains how to lose the lingo and adapt the principles of customer service to patient care.
For patients with severe heart failure, ventricular assist devices are being used in more ways than ever.
Managing the complications of acute failure, so your patient’s liver has time to regenerate.
Saving a patient’s life may rest on recognizing which findings are red herrings and which hold the key to the crisis.
A new document created by ANA and other groups delineates emergency care principles for psychiatric patients.
For homeless people, chronic illnesses can be hard to manage. Here’s what you should know about assessing these patients and developing a practical discharge plan.
Assess wounds more precisely, identify wound-related problems earlier, and intervene more effectively.
Be sure you’re prepared to care for patients with this condition
A precursor to serious complications, this dangerous condition is on the rise among Americans.
Learn about assessment, intervention, and teaching for patients with this progressive debilitating disease.
A nursing team’s research findings lead to hospital-wide savings.
Commonly confused with SIADH, cerebral salt wasting can result from such neurologic conditions as subarachnoid hemmorrhage, intracranial hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, intracranial surgery, and brain trauma.
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.
Color “blindness” may help minimize social and economic disparities, but can impede accurate patient assessment. The author explains why nurses should practice color awareness and tells how to adapt skin inspection for dark-skinned patients.
Learn how one hospital improved communication between nurses and intubated patients through the use of an algorithm,
new communication devices, and a focused communications course for nurses.
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.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 provides many benefits.
Alzheimer’s disease afflicts not just the person who has it but everyone in that person’s orbit. Learn how to help family members caring for patients with this nursing research.
Nurses nationwide work to eliminate partner violence.
Our editor-in-chief turns a spotlight on faith and community partnerships.
Effective communication enables nurses and physicians to negotiate a collaborative decision that honors the family’s wishes.
Author Leah Curtin discusses the dangers of bottom-line thinking.
The authors explain how they successfully implemented an injury prevention program.
Helping nurses strengthen their delegation skills
How to assess the integumentary and musculoskeletal systems, head, neck, face, and functional status
Syncope is a common occurrence and is commonly benign. But sometimes a swoon signals a serious underlying condition. Learn what causes syncope and how to assess and intervene for a patient who has just experienced it.
ANA and NCSBN team up to create a joint statement on delegation.
Nurses can help consumers understand and incorporate key healthcare recommendations into their lives.
Quantum nursing demands that nurses honor each person’s
humanity, promote independence and autonomy, and offer the
opportunity for individuals to redefine for themselves who they are and how they choose to live.
An ANA Workgroup is drafting position statements on end-of-life issues.
How well do you know holistic nursing? Expand your knowledge with this article.
What nurses don’t know about hospice and palliative care can hurt the patient and family.
Dolls can work wonders on geriatric dementia patients.
Innovative information technology tools help ensure patients get the right care at the right time.
A positive work environment and nurse satisfaction can improve nurse retention.
Disruptive patients can be challenging for even the most experienced nurse. Learn how identify those at high risk for disruptive behavior and strategies for defusing a person who is being disruptive.
How to use auscultation to distiguish sinus bradycardia from complete heart block in geriatric patients.
Hospitals seeking to raise their HCAHPS score should focus on old-fashioned values—courtesy, kindness,respect, discipline, and commitment.
Looking for more information on evidence-based practices? Read this first article in a series from the National Institute of Nursing Research.
Communicating with crochet.
Family nurse practitioner (FNP) and nurse-midwife Karen Holder, FNP-BC, CNM, MHS, sees patients at a large primary care clinic in Flagstaff, Arizona, as well as at small satellite units in remote communities sprinkled around northern Arizona.
Read about a valuable health-education resource for foreign-language patients.
NIH has updated its guidelines on asthma diagnosis and treatment. Learn how to help your asthma patients lead fuller lives.
Create a protocol for this lifesaving intervention at your facility.
Should patients receive neuromuscular blockers while mechanical ventilation is withdrawn?
The director of the National Magnet Recognition Program® previews the upcoming conference and reveals other
activities at the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
Cultural awareness can lead to better outcomes.
A type of dialysis, MARS removes toxins and replaces
lost liver functions.
Caring for a medically futile patient can be a wrenching emotional experience. Learn how to cope with the complex medical, ethical, and legal issues and help patients and families make difficult decisions.
When a patient says, “I’m afraid I’m going to die,” do you offer empty reassurances? Find an excuse to leave the room? Read this article to learn about simple spiritual interventions that can aid a patient in spiritual distress.
Surviving surprise visits can be easier if you use the author’s “E” approach.
From the U.S. to Uganda, in sleek American hospitals and makeshift Afghan clinics, nurses give of themselves to transform lives. Compelled by a deep passion to aid people in need, nurses help sustain human dignity and humanity through their caring presence and heart-to-heart sharing.
A nursing peer-review process at a Magnet hospital drives exemplary outcomes and promotes a more professional environment.
How is an artichoke like an angry patient? What can you do to diffuse anger.
A thoroughly rational approach to the most frightening of seizures.
Pain, arthritis, fractures, and skeletal deformities are calling cards of Paget’s disease. A new one-dose drug therapy can produce extended remission.
Faith-based nursing provides autonomy, creativity, flexibility, and the chance to provide whole-person care.
Faith-based nursing provides autonomy, creativity, flexibility, and the chance to provide whole-person care.
Interpreters are valuable partners when you need to teach a patient who speaks a language you don’t speak. Here’s how to achieve an effective collaboration.
Patient-centeredness is a process that must be owned by all, from top to bottom.
When you administer paternal and enteral phenytoin (Dilantin), make sure your patient stays free from seizures and drug toxicity.
Recognizing this rare condition requires knowledge – and some creative thinking.
Even if you rarely care for children, make sure you know which respiratory assessment findings are red flags.
How to manage this complex condition correctly to avoid severe complications.
Avoid multiple organ failure with early monitoring and early intervention.
How an evidence-based protocol for risk assessment and risk-based prophylaxis can decrease venous thromboembolism in your institution.
Confused about central catheters? Here’s what you need to know.
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.
GI distress after surgery is a scary prospect for patients, and an all-too-common reality. But it isn’t inevitable. Learn how to minimize your patients’ risk and relieve their symptoms.
Serious patient-flow problems call for more than just quick fixes. In some facilities, the culture must be transformed before patient bottlenecks can be banished. Read about one hospital’s system-wide cure for its throughput blues.
The patient’s family makes an initial judgment about a nurse within 60 seconds—so your first words are crucial. Find out how to make every second count.
To improve patient outcomes, nurses need to challenge practice traditions.
Delirium affects 30% to 40% of hospitalized older adults but often goes unrecognized. This article discussed its pathophysiology and risk factors, assessment techniques, and preventative strategies.
How one community hospital dealt with the twin problems of a saturated emergency department and ambulance diversions.
Without quick thinking and a call to the rapid response team, this reaction to atypical antipsychotics can kill.
When a cancer patient’s thirst increases and urine output decreases, suspect syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone.
If you lift or transfer patients, make “Assess first, lift later” your motto. Find out which critical patient and ergonomic factors you must evaluate before starting any patient-handling task.
Manay dangerous ischemic events are clinically silent. Continuous ST-segment monitoring gives early warning of the silent ischemia that many other diagnostic methods fail to detect.
People who mutilate themselves excel at hiding their injuries. Find out how to identify self-mutilators and nurture their trust.
Ready or not, we’re on the brink of a senior healthcare crisis.
How to recognize sepsis in time and use the therapies recommended by the Surviving Sepsis Campaign.
Nurses play a significant role in helping patients to get the sleep they need.
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.
Providing family-centered care means listening to, engaging, and collaborating with patients and their families.
Read these excerpts on suffering and spirituality from Nursing and Health Care Ethics: A Legacy and a Vision.
Nursing vigilance helps a patient with chronic obstructive oulmonary disease stave off respiratory failure.
A monthly round-up of clinical, practice, and career news, updates, and alerts.
A monthly round-up of clinical and practice news and alerts.
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.
WEB EXCLUSIVE – More information on teaching patients ostomy care. Please download PDF for best viewing.
Make sure your ostomy patients leave the hospital with the knowledge and skills they need.
Make sure your ostomy patients leave the hospital with the knowledge and skills they need.
This review of the six classes of antihypertensives tells you what you need to know and what you need to teach patients.
Using Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) to produce better patient outcomes
The author explores ethical questions about caring for a baby with profound birth defects and offers a nursing answer.
Even if you’re not a quilt connoisseur, you’re sure to appreciate the beauty and handiwork of this nurse’s quilt. Its creator sees profound parallels between quilting and nursing.
Protect your ARDS patients from danger with perfusion, positioning, protective lung ventilation, protocol weaning, and prevention of complications.
By reciting wacky dialogue from a scene in a Monty Python movie, Mary Delisle, RN, interrupted the negative thought patterns of a patient mired in dread and dispair.
With a shrinking workforce and more complex healthcare, how can nurses raise the bar on clinical excellence? One hospital uses health information technology to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary errors – and has gained Magnet status in the process.
Nurses represent the best value in health care.
Storytelling is a useful way to promote holistic care. The next time your patient shows poor coping ability, you might want to ask him to tell a story about what he’s experiencing.
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.
To promote positive outcomes in patients with trach tubes, nurses need to stay up-to-date on best practices and develop and maintain the necessary skills.
A case scenario underscores the risks of failing to analyze a patient’s clinical trends.
Music can decrease patients’ pain and anxiety, lower their pulse and blood pressure, and reduce their need for sedation.
More research is needed to increase our understanding of multiple chemical sensitivity.
A pet visit may do the trick for your patient.
Start the conversation: Don’t let embarrassment prolong the problem.
Helping your patients stop smoking is one of the most important things you can do to protect their health. Now evidence-based guidelines are available to guide your interventions.
Move over, Glasgow. There’s a new coma scoring tool in town.
How genetic testing ensures that patients start warfarin therapy at their personal-best doses.
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.
Neurogenic shock must be diagnosed and treated early to limit the effects of hypotension and bradycardia and restore adequate tissue oxygenation.
Nursing rounds are making a comeback – but this time, they’re based on research and structured for maximum efficiency.
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