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Barriers to the informed consent process may exist among emergency patients, including impaired decisional capacity, impaired cognition, language barriers, illiteracy, insufficient time and communication, and numerous others. Because of the inherent vulnerability of ED patients, particular attention should be paid to addressing barriers to adequate informed consent, and steps should be taken to ensure adequate delivery of information, understanding of the proposed intervention and its risks and benefits, and voluntariness of the informed consent.
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Its 3 a.m., and a well-dressed man and woman approach the triage nurse with official-looking clipboards in hand. They claim to be surveyors from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and they demand to be shown your medication storage areas.
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ED nurses will face even greater responsibility for compliance under the 2006 National Patient Safety Goals just unveiled by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).
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Overworked ED nurses at McKay-Dee Hospital Center in Ogden, UT, were frustrated with spending hours looking through charts to figure out charges for procedures.
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A man walks into your ED screaming at the top of his lungs and waving his arms wildly. Its clear that sedation is needed, but the safety of this patient and the ED staff is very much at risk.
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An 8-year-old boy with a fractured arm was grimacing in pain when he arrived at the ED at Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta. Nurses quickly learned about his love for dinosaurs, cars, and superheroes and talked to him about his interests.
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This is the second of a two-part series on care of sepsis patients in the ED. This month, we cover educational strategies for emergency nurses regarding practice changes to comply with new guidelines. Last month, we covered new approaches for assessment and intervention in the ED.
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The diagnosis of meningitis was clear: The one-month-old infant showed classic signs and symptoms. A lumbar puncture was ordered, but antibiotics werent given until several hours later, and the child suffered severe brain damage. The result of the ensuing malpractice lawsuit: A $1 million settlement.
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While the two new requirements involving hand-offs and medication labeling are the most obvious changes in the 2006 National Patient Safety Goals just released by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, there are other, more subtle changes that also are critically important for nurse managers to know about.
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When a patient complains of shortness of breath, congestive heart failure (CHF) may be one of the first things you suspect, but a definitive diagnosis can be difficult. Now a new blood test that measures a cardiac biomarker, the terminal prohormone of B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), can give you an answer within minutes.
