Responsibilities of Nursing Managers on Patient Care Needs Response

er indications, hand hygiene procedures, insertion techniques, catheter maintenance, and catheter removal guidelines (Hernandez et al., 2019). The presence of the checklist served as a reminder while keeping the nurses accountable. Although Hernandez et al., (2019) noted that participation and documentation using the checklist was subpar, when it was used, nurses reported following the appropriate procedures which grants some efficacy for the usefulness of such checklists in the field. More reinforcement would be needed to highlight the usefulness of using checklists as a standard of care to ensure that proper procedure is being followed to prevent CAUTIs.

Reference

Hernandez, M., King, A., Stewart, L. (2019, March). Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) prevention and nurses’ checklist documentation of their indwelling catheter management practices. Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, 35(1), 29-42. https://doi.org/10.36951/ngpxnz.2019.004

SECOND POST

My discussion post this week focused on healthcare associated infections as well. I felt this would be a good topic to base research off of due to their prevalence, and contribution to patient morbidity and mortality. I was also drawn to this topic due to the alarming occurrence of these infections, and how easily preventable they are with proper education and implementation of infection control measures. Many of the patients in the intensive care unit are already immunocompromised, with multiple invasive lines, and are therefore at a higher risk of obtaining these infections. There are over 20,000 cases of central-line associated bloodstream infections (CLASBSI’s) in the United States alone, and they are one of the most dangerous due to their responsibility for one third of all deaths due to hospital acquired infections (Burnham et al., 2018). The best prevention for these types of infections are frequent and efficient hand hygiene, especially when using the ports of these lines, and removal of the lines as soon as possible (Burnham et al., 2018). It seems as if your research question about utilization of a CLABSI bundle would decrease incidence of infection in the intensive care unit. Great job on utilizing the research process and selecting a research problem.

Reference:

Burnham, J. P., Rojek, R. P., & Kollef, M. H. (2018). Catheter removal and outcomes of multidrug-resistant central-line-associated bloodstream infection. Medicine,97(42). doi:10.1097/md.0000000000012782

THIRD POST

I absolutely agree with you and I think most healthcare workers also agree with you. It makes sense that making assignments based on patient acuity would only improve nursing care. An article by Jones (2020) researched nurse to patient ratios and patient acuity in New Zealand. The article initially states that just mandating nurse to patient ratios is not enough and should be taken further to include patient acuity. They found that appropriate staffing for patient acuity lowered costs and improved patient outcomes (Jones, 2020). Another important finding was that patient falls significantly reduced when patients were assigned appropriately based on acuity (Jones, 2020). I find that in my personal experience this completely holds true. On days that I work when the hospital is short staffed, and nurses are very busy it always seems like parts of patient care get left behind. I would be interested in the responses of nurses involved in other qualitative studies evaluating ratios and patient acuity.

Jones, M. (2020). Are ratios really the answer? Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, 26(5), 26-28.