Safer Care For The Acutely Ill Patient

The fully updated second edition of this popular handbook concisely summarises all current knowledge about delirium in critically ill patients and describes simple tools the bedside clinician can use to prevent, diagnose and manage delirium. Chapters discuss new developments in assessing risk and diagnosis, crucial discoveries regarding delirium and long-term cognitive outcomes, and dangers of sedation and death. Updated management advice reflects new evidence about antipsychotics and delirium. This book explains how to minimise the risks of delirium, drugs to avoid, drugs to use and when to use them, as well as current theories regarding pathophysiology, different motoric subtypes leading to missed diagnosis, and the adverse impact of delirium on patient outcomes. While there are still unanswered questions, this edition contains all the available answers. Illustrated with real-life case reports, Delirium in Critical Care is essential reading for trainees, consultants and nurses in the ICU and emergency department.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

A single coherent source of information on the various interlinking domains of patient safety, litigation and ethical behaviour, based on accounts of real-life situations and intended for all healthcare students, specialists and administrators.

Building on the revolutionary Institute of Medicine reports To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm, Keeping Patients Safe lays out guidelines for improving patient safety by changing nurses' working conditions and demands. Licensed nurses and unlicensed nursing assistants are critical participants in our national effort to protect patients from health care errors. The nature of the activities nurses typically perform â€" monitoring patients, educating home caretakers, performing treatments, and rescuing patients who are in crisis â€" provides an indispensable resource in detecting and remedying error-producing defects in the U.S. health care system. During the past two decades, substantial changes have been made in the organization and delivery of health care â€" and consequently in the job description and work environment of nurses. As patients are increasingly cared for as outpatients, nurses in hospitals and nursing homes deal with greater severity of illness. Problems in management practices, employee deployment, work and workspace design, and the basic safety culture of health care organizations place patients at further risk. This newest edition in the groundbreaking Institute of Medicine Quality Chasm series discusses the key aspects of the work environment for nurses and reviews the potential improvements in working conditions that are likely to have an impact on patient safety.

This key textbook equips all nurses with the knowledge and skills required to care for the deteriorating patient in the clinical environment. The book emphasises the importance of systematic assessment, interpretation of clinical signs of deterioration, and the need to escalate the patient in a timely manner. Using a unique system-based approach, each chapter contains structured learning outcomes and concludes with a competence-based skills assessment to perfect the reader's practice skills. These skills are recommended as essential for every nurse in an acute area and key to successful practice. Restructured for ease of use, this new edition has been fully updated to match current guidelines, with new chapters on pain management and the ethics and ceilings of treatment. Written by senior nurses, this key textbook uses real life case studies to link knowledge to practice and is essential reading for all nurses working in acute care settings and undertaking study in the field.

Care of the Acutely Ill Adult equips all nurses with the knowledge and skills to care for deteriorating patients in the clinical environment. With its unique system-based approach, this key book emphasizes systematic assessment, careful monitoring, and timely escalation, and is essential reading for all nurses working in acute care settings.

"This project aimed to collect and critically review the existing evidence on practices relevant to improving patient safety"--P. v.