It is 2 am in the cardiac step-down unit. A nurse needs to set up a secondary infusion on a new infusion pump, a procedure that she has never done before. She had attended the in-service training session before the pumps arrived the previous month, but there was a great deal of information to absorb. Clinical nurse specialists, who provide assistance with technology-related questions, are not a...

AIM This analysis compares the staffing implications of three measures of nurse staffing requirements: midnight census, turnover adjustment based on length of stay, and volume of admissions, discharges and transfers. BACKGROUND Midnight census is commonly used to determine registered nurse staffing. Unit-level workload increases with patient churn, the movement of patients in and out of the n...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to gain insight into nurse managers’ stress experiences and coping strategies in order to better support them. Design: A qualitative exploratory descriptive research design was used in this study. Subject: Fifteen nurse managers participated in this study. Results: Three descriptive themes related to nurse managers’ occupational stress were identified: r...

Catherine Draper is a staff nurse at Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS Foundation Trust, Norfolk.

Some nurses describe individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) as among the most challenging and difficult patients encountered in their practice. As a result, the argument has been made for nursing staff to receive clinical supervision to enhance therapeutic effectiveness and treatment outcomes for individuals with BPD. Formal clinical supervision can focus on the stress...

http://ccn.aacnjournals.org Denise M. Lemke has 27 years of experience as a staff nurse in a neurological intensive care unit, as a neurosurgical coordinator, as a nurse practitioner in neurosurgery, as a nurse practitioner in interventional neuroradiology, and currently as a neurocritical care nurse practitioner in the department of neurology. She has a special interest in traumatic brain inju...

BACKGROUND Telephone triage represents one strategy to manage demand for face-to-face GP appointments in primary care. However, limited evidence exists of the challenges GP practices face in implementing telephone triage. We conducted a qualitative process evaluation alongside a UK-based cluster randomised trial (ESTEEM) which compared the impact of GP-led and nurse-led telephone triage with us...

AIM This paper reports on structures and processes of hospital care influencing 30-day mortality for acute medical patients. BACKGROUND Wide variation in risk-adjusted 30-day hospital mortality rates for acute medical patients indicates that hospital structures and processes of care affect patient death. Because nurses provide the majority of care to hospitalized patients, we propose that str...

In Tanzania maternal and perinatal mortalities and morbidities are problems of public health importance, and have been linked to the shortage of skilled staff. We quantified the available workforce and the required nursing staff for perinatal care in 16 health institutions in Dar es Salaam. WHO safe motherhood needs assessment instruments were used to assess the availability of human resources,...