Critical care nursing quarterly
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Comparative Study
Reduction in time to first action as a result of electronic alerts for early sepsis recognition.
The use of an electronic alerting system to notify practitioners when a patient meets modified systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria was hypothesized to decrease the time to goal-directed therapy initiation. This retrospective, before-and-after study analyzed adult patients identified with sepsis or septic shock and compared 30 patients prior to electronic alert initiation with 30 patients after initiation. ⋯ Using computerized medical records to create an electronic alerting system has the potential to identify high-risk patients and initiate interventions sooner. At our institution, the creation of an alerting system with real-time data has decreased the time it takes to begin sepsis workup and treatment.
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Over the last decade, hospitalizations for sepsis have more than doubled and the incidence of postsurgical sepsis tripled between 1997 and 2006. This upward trend is expected to continue for several reasons, including population-specific characteristics (e.g., age, chronic disease status) and health care-specific characteristics (eg, lack of understanding of sepsis, medical treatments that leave patients susceptible). Highly effective, focused, quality improvement teams need to be established in order to successfully manage this condition. ⋯ Hospitals have responded with not only corrective actions but also actions that improve quality despite a lack of noted deficiencies (i.e., taking quality from "good" to "better"). Key components of a successful quality improvement program have been identified, as have components of successful quality improvement teams. By applying these components to a physician-led sepsis quality improvement team, hospitals can successfully decrease sepsis mortality and increase compliance with the application of sepsis best practice in the emergency department, intensive care unit, or non-intensive care unit nursing units.
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Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a complex medical condition that affects not only the airway but also the cardiopulmonary, endocrine, and central nervous systems. Obstructive sleep apnea can usually be identified with a focused history and physical examination and is commonly associated with obese, middle-aged men with hypertension and glucose intolerance. A high index of suspicion for OSA should arise when reports of loud snoring, nighttime arousal, and acid reflux accompanied by a history of stroke, atrial fibrillation, or congestive heart failure are elicited during a perianesthesia evaluation. ⋯ Central axial opioids and continuous intravenous opioid infusions should be avoided while nonopioid and non-centrally acting analgesics are recommended. Careful postoperative monitoring is important to preventing serious morbidity. Early identification of OSA and its comorbidities is key to developing a safe anesthesia and postoperative treatment plan.
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Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) reduces neurologic injury and mortality in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors. Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the main causes of cardiac arrest and primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is recommended as initial treatment for patients who present with acute ST-segment elevated MI (STEMI). Cape Fear Valley Medical Center (CFVMC) was the only designated PCI center in the state of North Carolina without a TH protocol. ⋯ The development of a postarrest STEMI TH protocol involved multiple disciplines and required approval from several committees. Lack of physician and nursing knowledge of the protocol proved to be the greatest challenge. The TH protocol is a step forward in implementing evidence-based practice and improving the quality of postresuscitation care provided to postcardiac arrest STEMI patients.
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The leading cause of death due to health care-associated infections is ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The lack of clarity in the definition of VAP has made it difficult to execute and evaluate the effectiveness of prevention strategies. ⋯ This article outlines the results of a quality improvement project that was conducted to address this recommendation, improve current staff knowledge, identify gaps in practice, and determine the rate of compliance with prevention strategies. The major findings of this project also exposed limitations of the electronic medical record system, and suggested enhancements, which would promote the VAP Bundle initiatives, facilitate documentation, and permit straightforward data collection.