My coworker had a 40-year-old patient who came to the hospital for alcohol withdrawal. All the nurses on our floor knew him really well because he visits our hospital frequently. At around 7:30 pm, our telemetry showed that the patient was having a heart rate of 180s to190s. We all were still getting report. Charge nurse went to assess the patient, patient started yelling in a loud voice, throwing pillows and a blanket. It turned out that the patient went to the delirium tremens (DT) phase. He was confused, disoriented, hallucinating, agitated, irritated and had muscle tremor. When reviewing the medication administration record (MAR), charge nurse noticed that CIWA scale was not done as ordered and as a result patient did not get enough Lorazepam …show more content…
As a result, nurses were running behind trying to get their regular and stat blood work, assessments, vitals and charting done on time. Hence, it was unfair to the patient as well as a nurse taking care of the patient. If he was given lorazepam as ordered, he would not have gone to DT and this would not have created any unnecessary stress on the nurses, doctors and patient care techs. This clinical case is related to the emancipatory knowledge. Emancipatory knowing is the ability to identify social and political problems of injustice and adds all the elements of experience and context to change a situation (Chinn, 2010, p. 63). As soon as charge nurse noticed that the patient had a change of status and tachycardia, she looked at the doctor’s note, assessment data and MAR to figure out what was wrong with this picture and what needs to change. Also, she found out that the nurse who had this patient during the day had all higher acuity level patient along with 1 code patient. In addition to this, patient was assigned to the room far from nurses’ station. Also, charge nurse immediately called hospitalists as soon as patient had a change of
On March 2, 2016 at approximately 2013 hours Security Officer Tom Mejia and Shift Supervisor Steven Evans responded to dispatched call for a 51D (Disorderly Patient in ED) to Emergency Room #42. It was reported that the patient was intoxicated and was attempting to leave. On arrival, E.D. Registered Nurse Camila Perez explained that the patient, Ms. Shayna Patkotak (FIN: #85305794) was indeed intoxicated and was wanting to leave but she was back in her room. Ms. Shayna was verbal about wanting to leave and smoke but the medical staff was able to get her to comply with them. Security stood by while the medical staff attended to her. We did not have to go hands on and there were no injuries to the staff during this incident. All cleared, nothing
Ms. Maness is a 45 year old female who presented to the ED with an alleged overdose on 3 pills of Keppra and 3 pills of Librium in a attempt to harm self. Ms. Maness denies suicidal ideations, homicidal ideations, and symptoms of psychosis. Ms. Maness reports a history of Alcohol abuse and recently was 3 days sober, however last night relapsed after conflict with hr boyfriend. Ms. Maness does not appears to be responding to any internal stimuli.
Not only did insufficient staffing contribute to the causes of this particular event, but human error also played a significant role. When Mr. B arrived at the ED, he was hyperventilating. His leg “appeared shortened.” He had edema in his calf, ecchymosis, limited ROM, and he rated his pain at a ten out of ten. Mr. B also had a history of prostate cancer, impaired glucose tolerance, elevated cholesterol and lipids, and chronic pain. He was admitted to the ED with a plan to relocate his hip. Dr. T ordered diazepam 5.0 mg to be administered through IVP and then just five minutes later ordered 2.0 mg hydromorphone to be administered because it appeared that the diazepam was not having the intended sedating effect. Again, just five minutes later, Dr. T was still not satisfied with the level of sedation and instructed the nurse to
Bronchodilator Response of Nebulized Salbutamol versus Salbutamol and Ipratropium Bromide in Adult Patients with Acute Severe Asthma
To do so, I am going to use the fishbone diagram to categorize the causative factors (Potter & Perry, 2008). For patient characteristics, Mr. B was a 67 year old patient with routine use of oxycodone to treat chronic pain. Because of his routine use of oxycodone, he may need a different dose to get to a sedated level than other people who are not on any medication. Next is the task factors, the hospital had a policy which requires that anyone who are treated with moderate sedation or analgesia have to be put on continuous blood pressure, ECG, and pulse oximeter monitoring until the procedure is done and patient is in stable condition. Mr. B was not being monitored accordingly during the sedation process. Another task factors is that all staffs must first complete a training module on sedation before performing the task. Individual staff is a factor too, Nurse J had completed the training module on sedation, he had an ACLS certification as well as experience working as a critical care nurse. Team factors include communication between staffs; an example would be the LPN not informing Nurse J or Dr. T when the alarm went off the first time, it showed that Mr. B had low oxygen saturation. Work environment factors included the staffing in the ER, the equipments they had, and the level of experience of the staffs. According to the scenario, additional staffs were available for back up support and all the equipment needed
Mrs. Foster is a 81 year old female who presented ED a history of dementia. Per documentation daughter reports this has been her mother's baseline for the past week. At the time of the assessment Mrs. Foster denies suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation, and symptoms of psychosis. During the assessment Mrs. Foster recent memory appear to be impaired. She would occasionally think her husband was around or she was home. This clinician spoken with Mrs. Foster daughter for collateral information. Her daughter reports she was managing her Namemba, however was out of it a week ago. she reports behavior started to worsen. Namemba is used to treat dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Snyder restarted medication. Patient does not appear
While she was in recovery, her experience there was not so great. The nurse taking care of her that night was very rude and never once listened to anything Christiane had to say. The nurse was irritated that Christiane asked him for a bed pan, expressing that she should have called a technician instead of her. Then 10 minutes later the same nurse showed back up with about twelve barcoded bags of medication, including medication to lower Christiane’s blood pressure, which baffled Christian because she did not have high blood pressure. Christiane expressed to the nurse that there must have been a mistake, but the nurse insists he was not wrong and went on to explain that he followed the hospitals barcoding system and therefor did not make a mistake.
If I was a new administrator at Jamestown Medical Center and I received a phone call from the nurse manager stating that she suspects Dr. Smith being intoxicated, the first thing I would do is ask the nurse to elaborate for me on what she saw. After speaking with the nurse, I will then go to the emergency room department and make my own observations. If I notice any changes in Smith’s speech, behavior, appearance or even smell alcohol, I would quickly pull the physician outside in a private location to address the situation. After speaking with the physician, I would then send him home and see which physician is on-call to take over his shift. At the moment I will document what had occurred and put it aside until his next shift. Once the doctor
Delirium is a serious condition that can affect patients in and outside the hospital. With its presence being unknown to many nurses and providers, delirium has significant long term complications that can last well beyond discharge. Noise, medication, and infection are significant in the development and progression of delirium and these are more than abundant within intensive care patients. The importance of nurse’s knowledge cannot be stressed enough regarding the assessment, symptoms, and interventions of delirium, in an effort to decrease its occurrence
Enhanced assessment and nursing implementations to better prevent and detect ICU delirium will bring improved outcomes for this particular patient population. There are many ways to assess for ICU delirium. Two of the most reliable and easiest methods are basic observations from the bedside nurse and The Confusion Assessment Method (CAM). The CAM includes nine different criteria for delirium (1) acute onset and fluctuation, (2) inattention, (3) disorganized thinking, (4) altered level of consciousness, (5) disorientation, (6) memory impairment, (7) perceptual disturbances, (8) psychomotor agitation or retardation, and (9) altered sleep-wake cycle. A delirium diagnosis is given when criteria one and two and either three or four are present. The second assessment tool for delirium detection is made from nursing observations. The nurse observes the patient throughout their
On august 13, 2016 I was assigned to follow one of the ICU Nurse. It was a very calm day. She had two patient one was more critical than the other. Both patients were on the ventilator because they had to be intubated the night before. The lady is obese and had gastric bypass surgery two years ago and suffering from severe sleep apnea, but the patient is non-compliance to the CPAP treatment. That was her second time being intubated. She was admitted for seizure monitoring because she was constantly having seizures the day before while she was at home. Due to the fact that she did not want to wear her CPAP machine while in the hospital, after pain medication was administered she was found unresponsive, that was the reason for her intubation the night before. Patient was on intermittent suctioning, she has sinus tachycardia . I had the opportunity to observe some of her daily care. The patient was on fentanyl but when the Dr. try to wean her out of the ventilator she stop breathing, therefore, the DR. discontinue the fentanyl temporarily in other to retest her later.
My colleague and I received an emergency call to reports of a female on the ground. Once on scene an intoxicated male stated that his wife is under investigation for “passing out episodes”. She was lying supine on the kitchen floor and did not respond to A.V.P.U. I measured and inserted a nasopharyngeal airway which was initially accepted by my patient. She then regained consciousness and stated, “Oh it’s happened again has it?” I removed the airway and asked my colleague to complete base line observations and ECG which were all within the normal range. During history taking my patient stated that she did not wish to travel to hospital. However each time my patient stood up she collapsed and we would have to intervene to
Nursing assessment within 24 hours, Nutrition and hydration status, Functional status living, Social, spiritual, and cultural variables. Liza was admitted to the intensive care right away which wasn’t appropriate. The first step in the evaluation of a patient presenting with syncope consists of obtaining a detailed history and conducting a physical examination including blood pressure (BP) measurements and standard ECG. In this case, the nursing staff started began performing nervous system checks after 18 hours of her admission which is in my opinion was not appropriate because that should have been done right away after her arrival to the emergency room and after doing these evaluations, they should’ve decided on whether she was supposed to be admitted to intensive care or not. Also, the results of these tests would help them determine if a CT scan was needed and if needed, it should’ve been right away. In my opinion, Liza’s admission processes were not handled properly by the nursing staff at the hospital and her treatment was delayed. If all the processes were done on time and all the tests were done right away, her condition would not have worsened and she could have been started on anticoagulants for cerebral infarction. Patients have a better chance of survival and recovery if these drugs are taken within 12 hours of the incident. Most patients are administered these drugs within 90 minutes of hospital arrival.
Another day of my clinical placement 420 in orthopaedic unit began on July 4, 2015. I received my patient and started to research a patient history and medications. At 0700 a shift report started, I received information that my patient had fall at night shift without witnesses. By the policy of Providence Healthcare a patient who had fall without witnesses should be automatically monitored for head injury therefore, a Glasgow Coma Scale was initiated by previous nurse: every 15 minutes, then every hour, every two hours, and every 4 hours. This scale is to check and monitor level of consciousness which possibly may decline after head injury. At this day we had a student as a "nurse in charge", she volunteered to come with me to patient room and to supervise my work. For this particular patient close monitoring of vital signs and neurologic assessment required. I explained to the patient the purpose of frequent health assessment and started to work. Close patient monitoring in addition to all daily routine activities was challenging to me because I never had a patient with this diagnosis. Despite my explanation of the purpose of frequent assessments patient stated that "I am fine, do not feel any discomfort, there is no need for that". While assessing patient she keep asking a lot of questions such as why so many time why do I need to drink more than one mouthful of water with my tablets, what these tablets for, why do I need to wait few minutes after
Joanna is an experienced nurse taking care of Mrs. Kelly, who was Joanna’s patient many times in the past for her primary problem which is COPD. This time Mrs. Kelly was admitted with complaints of abdominal pain what was different from her primary diagnoses. Her vital signs were with normal limits and no significant changes from privies results, but for the nurse she looks sick, and Joanna know that something is wrong. She calls the resident doctor, but he tell her to watches and calls back with series changes. Joanna multiple attempts to report that something needs to be done to evaluate the cause of Mrs. Kelly pain was ask to calm down. However nobody took patient symptoms series and the next day patient died.