Clinical nurse specialist CNS
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The purpose of this article was to describe the clinical nurse specialist's role in developing and implementing a journal club. Tools for critiquing clinical and research articles with an application of each are provided. ⋯ Enhanced nursing staff education, evidence-based practice, organization-wide nursing practice changes, and nursing research may be conducted following the implementation of a nursing journal club.
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The highly complex pediatric patients with congenital heart disease require interprofessional teamwork and collaboration to ensure high-quality outcomes with low mortality and morbidity (Congenit Heart Dis. 2013;8:3-19). The purpose of this study was to conduct an impact evaluation for a newly formed pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (PCICU) and to answer: Is there a difference between the pediatric intensive care unit and the PCICU on clinical outcome measures of pediatric cardiac postoperative patients and nursing resources? ⋯ This evaluation has provided organizational leaders the quality indicators and costs that have been impacted with the addition of interprofessional teamwork and coordination of care through the development of a PCICU.
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Many critically ill patients require a tracheostomy when unable to be weaned from prolonged ventilator support. This study describes the characteristics, resource use, and outcomes of patients who required a tracheostomy for failure to wean from mechanical ventilation. ⋯ Knowledge of characteristics and outcomes may assist in identifying interventions to reduce the need for tracheostomy or improve outcomes. In particular, the clinical nurse specialist can lead team initiatives to promote weaning prior rather than performing a tracheostomy as well as interventions postprocedure to improve discharge outcomes.