European journal of cardiovascular nursing : journal of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Nursing of the European Society of Cardiology
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Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs · Mar 2012
Risk factors for increased in-hospital mortality: a cohort study among cardiac surgery patients.
Mortality is an important healthcare index for assessing the quality and the effectiveness of the provided nursing care. ⋯ Increased level of NWL, patient perioperative risk and ICU-LOS are closely associated with increased in-hospital mortality of cardiac surgery patients. The correlation between NWL and mortality represents the strong link of the nursing profession with the improvement of the effectiveness and quality of care.
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Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs · Mar 2012
Controlled Clinical TrialPain management after cardiac surgery: experience with a nurse-driven pain protocol.
Management of post-operative pain is important for decreasing post-operative morbidity and mortality. After evaluating our pain score database of patients undergoing cardiac surgery (2007-2009) we revised our pain protocol. The new protocol allows nurses to administer analgesic medication without consulting the attending physician. The setting was a medium care unit, a nursing ward with additional monitoring of heart rate and rhythm. We investigated the effects of this revised pain protocol in a prospective consecutive cohort study. ⋯ This study shows that in post-cardiac surgery patients a significant reduction in VAS scores can be safely realized by a nurse-driven protocol. Furthermore, a reduction in time to achieve an acceptable pain score (VAS < 4) was realized.