Journal of nursing care quality
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Multicenter Study
An analysis of patient falls and fall prevention programs across academic medical centers.
UHC conducted an analysis of more than 25 000 patient fall reports entered into the UHC Patient Safety Net incident reporting tool. Gaps were found in the completion of fall risk assessments, the ability of tools to accurately assess risk, and prevention strategies in particular inpatient units and emergency department. Common factors in falls resulting in major harm or death included age more than 80 years, altered mental status, ambulation (often without assistance), toileting, and diuretics and anticoagulants.
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Variability in pain management processes may affect outcomes. Researchers collected pain management documentation from electronic health record systems of 3 hospitals and constructed process and outcome variables. Simple linear regressions revealed that relationships exist between increased pain variability and less frequent assessment and more frequent intervention, identifying targeted areas for improvement. Researchers demonstrated the use of the electronic record output for improvement purposes.
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Multicenter Study
Reducing serious injury from falls in two veterans' hospital medical-surgical units.
A large veteran's hospital participated in a year-long collaborative project across 9 hospitals to reduce serious injury from falls in acute care, targeting medical-surgical units. The primary objective of this project was to develop and test a set of interventions (bundles) to prevent serious physical injury (fractures and hemorrhagic bleeds) from patient falls. The interventions were implemented using tests of change on 2 medical-surgical units focused on engaging unit-based staff and combining innovations for vulnerable populations at greatest risk for injury if they fall.
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Death is an emotional event that leaves lasting memories for the bereaved. This article describes the qualitative analysis of a mailed family survey addressing experiences with community hospital inpatient end-of-life care. Family members identified and appreciated symptom management and caring behaviors such as compassion and communication; they also noted the absence of these caring behaviors. Effective application of these behaviors to the dying experience should improve family satisfaction with end-of-life care.
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Multicenter Study
Spanish validation of an instrument to measure the quality of nursing care in hospital emergency units.
The article describes the translation and adaptation to Spanish of the Consumer Emergency Care Satisfaction Scale (CECSS), an instrument used to measure the quality of care nurses give in emergency units. Bilingual people using a translation-retrotranslation process performed the adaptation. ⋯ Content validity (judgment of expert nurses and patients) obtained a mean item-dimension suitability valuation of 6.1 and item-scale suitability of 5.5. As the Spanish version of the CECSS is comprehensible to patients, and reliability and validity are satisfactory, it provides a useful measure of the quality of nursing care.