Epidural hematomas are a severe complication of head injuries and are considered to be a medical emergency. Although they may not be seen as often as subdural hematomas, they are much more serious and require emergency surgery. If epidural hematomas are not picked up quickly, they can result in severe neurologic deficits and even worse, death. A major concern in a patient with an epidural hematoma is failure to rescue by healthcare professionals. Failure to rescue is when healthcare professionals do not notice signs of a patients declining condition and subsequently fail to stabilize the patient (Gravey, 2015, p.145). This has become an increasing problem and has lead to numerous preventable disabilities and death. In order to avoid unnecessary harm to our patients it is essential that nurses are able to detect and notify any suspicion of epidural hematomas. Since nurses spend the majority of the time with the patient, they hold a significant role in early detection. Epidural hematomas are defined as …show more content…
In patients with epidural hematomas it is especially important that nurses be diligent when assessing their patients. The brain is a closed compartment and bleeding inside can go unnoticed easily. Many nurses could misconstrue sleeping with a decrease in level of consciousness. A more obvious and very avoidable reason in failure to rescue is nurses not following doctor’s orders properly. Frequent neurological assessments are essential and should be completed as ordered. Another reason epidural hematomas often get over looked is due to the signs that go along with the condition. The lucid interval that patients experience in epidural hematomas could be mistaken for the patient being stable and not needing intense monitoring. With continuous monitoring and being aware of the complications that follow epidural hematomas we can greatly reduce the risk of disability or death in these
The nurse will check the patient’s pupils, this is done by shining a pen light into the patient’s eyes and checking how the pupils respond, and they should both be of equal size and respond to light. The next step it to complete another Glasgow Coma Scale so that the nurse can measure any changes to Alice’s consciousness. A pain assessment would them be completed on Alice to make sure that she is in no pain and if she is in pain the nurse may need to speak to a doctor regarding what medication she can give to Alice to relieve the pain. A mini-mental status examination will be assessed next.
The nursing discipline embodies a whole range of skills and abilities that are aimed at maximizing one’s wellness by minimizing harm. As one of the most trusted professions, we literally are some’s last hope and last chance to thrive in life; however, in some cases we may be the last person they see on earth. Many individuals dream of slipping away in a peaceful death, but many others leave this world abruptly at unexpected times. I feel that is a crucial part to pay attention to individuals during their most critical and even for some their last moments and that is why I have peaked an interest in the critical care field. It is hard to care for someone who many others have given up on and how critical care nurses go above and beyond the call
It is important that people are in control of what happens to them while under the care of their doctor, especially if they're alert and aware. A provider cannot force treatment; if a patient is unconscious, the situation changes because competency and informed consent are not present.
Kothari, R., Jaunch, E., Broderick, J., Brott, T., Sauerbeck, L., Khoury, J. & Liu, T. (1998). Acute stroke: Delays to presentation and emergency department evaluation. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 33, 3−8. doi:10.1016/S0196-0644(99)70431-2
Safety is a primary concern in the health care environment, but there are still many preventable errors that occur. In fact, a study from ProPublica in 2013 found that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year suffer preventable harm in the hospital (Allen, 2013). Safety in the healthcare environment is not only keeping the patient safe, but also the employee. If a nurse does not follow procedure, they could bring harm to themselves, the patient, or both. Although it seems like such a simple topic with a simple solution, there are several components to what safety really entails. Health care professionals must always be cautious to prevent any mishaps to their patients, especially when using machines or lifting objects, as it has a higher
Diagnosing Epilepsy can be a long process with lots of steps to follow. When first going thru the process there will need to be a confirmation of parent history. Then there will be a full neurological exam followed by blood and clinical tests, to make sure it wasn’t some other type of episode such as fainting. Apart from the neurological exam, the EEG is the best tool to diagnosing seizures and epilepsy. Then the doctor will identify the type of seizures and do a clinical evaluation to determine the cause of epilepsy. Now depending on the results they will determine the best type of treatment.
American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. Professional Aspects of Nurse Anesthesia Practice. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1994. Print.
Patient safety is a major issue in health care, especially in the public sector. Studies show that as many as 10 patients get harmed daily as they receive care in stroke rehabilitation wards in hospitals in the United States alone. Patient safety refers to mechanisms for preventing patients from getting harmed as they receive health care services in hospitals. The issue of patient safety is usually associated with factors such as medication errors, wrong-site surgery, health care-acquired infections, falls, diagnostic errors, and readmissions. Patient safety can be improved through strategies such as improving communication within hospitals, increasing patient involvement, reporting adverse events, developing protocols and guidelines, proper management of human resources, educating health-care providers on the need for patient protection, and commitment of the leadership to the task. This paper talks about patient safety and how it can be improved in stroke rehabilitation wards of both public and private hospitals.
Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. Some of the best lessons in life are learned from making a mistake. But in the healthcare world making mistakes means losing lives. This has started to happen so frequently there has been a term coined – Failure to Rescue or FTR. Failure to rescue is a situation in which a patient was starting to deteriorate and it wasn’t noticed or it wasn’t properly addressed and the patient dies. The idea is that doctors or nurses could’ve had the opportunity to save the life of the patient but because of a variety of reasons, didn’t. This paper discusses the concept of FTR, describes ways to prevent it from happening; especially in relation to strokes or cerebrovascular accidents, and discusses the nursing implications involved in all of these factors.
Patient falls is one of the commonest events within the healthcare facilities that affect the safety of the patients. Preventing falls among patients requires various methods. Recognition, evaluation, and preventing of patient falls are great challenges for healthcare workers in providing a safe environment in any healthcare setting. Hospitals have come together to understand the contributing factors of falls, and to decrease their occurrence and resulting injuries or death. Risk of falls among patients is considered as a safety indicator in healthcare institutions due to this. Falls and related injuries have consistently been associated with the quality of nursing care and are included as a nursing-quality indicator monitored by the American Nurses Association, National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators and by the National Quality Forum. (NCBI)
example, patients who are going in for major abdominal surgery, or even normal childbirth. Nurses
The rate of errors and situations are seen as chances for improvement. A great degree of preventable adversative events and medical faults happen. They cause injury to patients and their loved ones. Events are possibly able to occur in all types of settings. Innovations and strategies have been created to identify hazards to progress patient and staff safety. Nurses are dominant to providing an atmosphere and values of safety. As an outcome, nurses are becoming safety leaders in the healthcare environment(Utrich&Kear,
The current patient may be experiencing a range of traumatic injuries after his accident, the injuries that the paramedic will focus on are those that are most life threatening. These injuries include: a possible tension pneumothroax or a haemothorax, hypovolemic shock, a mild or stable pelvic fracture and tibia fibula fracture.
Nurses form an important role in influencing patient safety from everyday tasks and gradually obtaining the patient vital signs have increasingly been seen as a chore instead of collecting clinical evidence. This then creates an extreme danger to patient’s as irregular monitoring of vital signs prevented early detection of deterioration in a patient’s condition, which postpones transfer to intensive care unit ( Kyriacos U et al 2011; Boulanger, 2009). Due to this, a...
Although students were not allowed in the recovery unit, I was able to talk to one of the recovery nurses. I learned that a nurse’s duty of care includes monitoring the patient’s vital signs and level of consciousness, and maintaining airway patency. Assessing pain and the effectiveness of pain management is also necessary. Once patients are transferred to the surgical ward, the goal is to assist in the recovery process, as well as providing referral details and education on care required when the patient returns home (Hamlin, 2010).