background & aim : ventilator associated pneumonia (vap) is the most common infections in critical care units, which leads to more length of hospital stay, costs, and high mortality. therefore, prevention is a priority according to clinical guidelines. the aim of this study is determine the effects of passive versus active implementation of vap guidelines on nurses’ performance in critical care...

Introduction Acutely admitted medical patients often present with a complex medical history. Patients admitted through an acute medical admission unit (AMAU) has had symptoms for an unknown period of time before contacting a general practitioner or the emergency room. The history will vary from acute onset to more chronic illness with acute worsening or lack of response to a given treatment. In...

BACKGROUND In South Africa, nurses are the largest category of the health care providers. Their optimal performance is critical for the successful implementation of impending health sector reforms. OBJECTIVE This paper examines the occurrence of agency nursing, moonlighting, and overtime among nurses in South Africa, and the factors influencing moonlighting. DESIGN This cross-sectional surv...

BACKGROUND The Emergency Severity Index (ESI) is an English language emergency department patient triage tool. After translation, it has been adapted for use to triage patients in growing numbers of emergency departments in non-English-speaking countries. Few reports of the proficiency of triage nurses to score an ESI exist. We sought to determine accuracy, inter-rater reliability, and subjecti...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study is to determine the states of health care personnel, working at 112 emergency stations in the province of Artvin, to encounter with regarding forensic cases and determine their practices aimed at recognizing, protecting, and reporting the evidences that may affect the forensic process. MATERIALS AND METHODS This descriptive study was conducted with nurse...

BACKGROUND Workplace stress can affect job satisfaction, increase staff turnover and hospital costs, and reduce quality of patient care. Highly resilient nurses adapt to stress and use a variety of skills to cope effectively. OBJECTIVE To gain data on a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy resilience intervention for intensive care unit nurses to see if the intervention program would be feasib...

BACKGROUND This qualitative study describes registered nurses' perspectives on work relationships with new graduates in emergency and critical care settings. METHODS Six focus groups of registered nurses (N = 31) were interviewed in open and informal discussions lasting approximately 45 to 90 minutes. RESULTS Two themes extracted from the data were lacking confidence and gaining acceptance ...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To investigate whether the greater urgency assigned to accident and emergency patients by triage nurses than by accident and emergency doctors was uniform across all patient groups. DESIGN Patients attending an accident and emergency department between 8.00 am and 9.00 pm over a six week period were assessed prospectively for degree of urgency by triage nurses, and retrospect...

BACKGROUND Hospitals that perform emergency surgery during the night (e.g., from 11:00 pm to 7:30 am) face decisions on optimal operating room (OR) staffing. Emergency patients need to be operated on within a predefined safety window to decrease morbidity and improve their chances of full recovery. We developed a process to determine the optimal OR team composition during the night, such that s...

In 1996 we established a day hospital dedicated to acute respiratory care, as an alternative to emergency department and inpatient treatment. The unit is staffed by respirologists, family physicians and specialized nurses; patients have access to all standard inpatient treatments and services. Between 1996/97 and 1998/99 the annual number of admissions to the day hospital increased from 658 to ...