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If your patient has aspirated prior to being intubated, he or she is at increased risk for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), warns Nicole Schiever, RN, MSN, ED team leader at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL.
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Your next stroke patient may be aware there is a drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), but he or she probably won't realize how few stroke patients are actually candidates for this treatment.
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Not every patient experiencing shortness of breath needs to have definitive airway intervention such as intubation, says Sybil Murray, RN, an ED nurse at St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis, MO.
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Asthma patients have worse outcomes and more hospitalizations if they wait too long before coming to the ED, according to a recent study, which found that one-third of 296 asthma patients seen in two New York City EDs waited more than five days before they decided to go to the ED.
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Just because a child with mental health issues is connected with an outpatient provider doesnt mean he or she wont come to the ED frequently for care, according to research from Johns Hopkins Childrens Center.
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ED nurses at Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, ME, have dramatically shortened door-to-CT and door-to-drug times with a Code Stroke program, reports Sean Hall, RN, one of the hospitals ED nurses.
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If procedural sedation is longer-term, or if your patient has pre-existing chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, consider monitoring end tidal carbon dioxide (CO2), advises Leah M. Gehri, RN, MN, CCRN, director of emergency, trauma, and cardiac services at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, WA.
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An elderly womans bruising and gastrointestinal bleeding turned out to be caused by taking more than triple the dose of her warfarin medication for several days, reports Jeannette Witzel, RN, CEN, an ED nurse at Ukiah (CA) Valley Medical Center.
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Obtaining an EKG in a timely manner is critical, says Brian W. Selig, MHA, BSN, RN, CEN, NE-BC, nurse manager of the ED at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, MO, especially with the recent emphasis on time-critical diagnosis by the Joint Commission and [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.]
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Heel and ankle pain was the only complaint of a patient being triaged by ED nurses at Edward Hospital in Naperville, IL, with no history of injury and no obvious signs of trauma or infection, when they learned an additional piece of information.
