Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

An Innovative Discharge Intervention: A Quality Improvement Project, Yvonne Swain

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

Problem: This project aims to decrease the discharge time of a patient from the hospital once the discharge order has been written. Current discharge times are averaging over 3 hours, leading to a breakdown in the patient throughput process. A patient survey was conducted to determine the reason for prolonged discharge times. The survey revealed that patients are not aware of their day of discharge, which may lead them to being discharged without transportation home. Many studies conclude that there are improvement opportunities around discharge planning and communication.

Context: This quality improvement initiative takes place in a 26-bed, medical-surgical/telemetry …

Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection Reduction: A Quality Improvement Project, Wallace Kramm

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

Problem: Hospital-acquired infections are preventable harm that occurs to patients while in the hospital. Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is a preventable hospital-acquired infection that continues to plague hospitals nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are more than 13,000 CAUTI related deaths in the United States annually (Scanlon, 2017). In addition to the harm caused to patients by CAUTIs, the estimated $500 million yearly cost for CAUTI treatment has created a fiscal burden on healthcare systems (Scanlon, 2017). Decreasing the rate of CAUTI by decreasing overall number of catheters is the goal of this …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication In The Intensive Care Unit: A Service Delivery Model, Beverly Lloyd, Ann R. Beck, Amy L. Yacucci

Graduate Independent Studies - Communication Sciences and Disorders

Patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) often find it difficult or impossible to verbally communicate due to mechanical ventilation, tracheostomy tubes or increased fatigue and delirium. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can provide ICU patients with a way to communicate during their ICU admittance. However, few hospitals currently have a systematic service delivery model in place for providing AAC tools and supports to ICU patients. This resource manual provides an outline for creating and implementing an AAC service delivery model along with AAC materials and resources appropriate for an ICU. Explanations of how each material is used, who they …

When Care Becomes Futile: Perspectives Of Acute Care Medical-Surgical Nurses, Angela Mulcahy

Nursing Theses and Dissertations

Caring for patients at end-of-life is a difficult patient assignment for a nurse. Possessing the knowledge, skills, and means to communicate with and advocate for patients is key to providing quality care. A concept analysis of death literacy identified one specific challenge for nurses, futile care. Futile care has been linked to increased patient suffering, increased health care costs, use of scarce resources, and moral distress. Futile care exists in the medical-surgical acute care setting, but the concept has not been explored within this population. More knowledge from bedside nurses was needed to explore the concept and identify ways to …

Prevalence And Risk Factors For Fear Of Birth In Pregnant Women In The United States, Whitney Gray Mildren

Nursing Dissertations - Archive

Fear of birth is an extreme state of anxiety from phobia about childbirth. It causes severe distress and anxiety. Women experiencing this distress may decide to avoid pregnancy, terminate pregnancy, or elect cesarean delivery without medical necessity. Prevalence of fear of birth in the United States has been reported in only three studies and has ranged from 27% to 52%, but the populations studied were healthy, college-aged, women who were not pregnant and were nulliparous. In other countries, the average prevalence rate of fear of birth in nulliparous and multiparous women at various points during pregnancy was 23%. Researchers from …

Developing Cultural Competency In Anesthesia Through Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists, Emma To

Doctoral Projects

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are the main anesthesia providers in over 70% of rural hospitals providing anesthesia. Each year, over 2,000 student registered nurse anesthetists (SRNAs) graduate and continue as licensed CRNAs. This Doctor of Nurse Practice (DNP) project emphasizes the importance of developing culturally competent providers in anesthesia by promoting early outreach in cultural competence education of SRNAs. Cultural competence is described as possessing characteristics of congruent attitudes, awareness, and conduct that provides and enables effective skills in cross-cultural encounters. Encompassing cultural competency education early in the SRNAs profession may provide valuable lifelong cultural skills that will benefit …

Interprofessional Education: How Curriculum Influences And Develops Future Healthcare Professionals, Karen Keune

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

The value of higher education is a topic of great consideration and discussion, not only for current and future students, but also for legislators, educators, and employers. A college degree is more than a pathway toward advanced knowledge in a given subject; it is a component of a larger outcome beyond a diploma, it's a job. While the scale of employment opportunities appears to rise for those with a college degree, it is not enough to guarantee security for new graduates, no matter their topic of study. More than a competency in the field of study is required to prove …

Dental Hygiene Protocol Used By Nurses In The Hospital Setting A Pilot Survey, Tsenre M. Vigil

Dental Hygiene ETDs

Oral care is often dismissed or undervalued in the overall health and wellness of individuals and can be detrimental to patients in hospital-like settings. Although dental hygienists are educated to practice in alternative practice settings like pediatric offices, hospitals, nursing homes, schools and federally qualified health centers they are underutilized in such arenas. The purpose of this study is to learn about the University of New Mexico Hospital’s (UNMH) current oral hygiene care practices and protocols, nurses’ values and interests in inter-professional collaboration with a dental hygienist.

A feedback survey was created and intended recipients included all UNMH nurses regardless …

Predicting First Term Success In An Associates Degree Nursing Program Using Cognitive And Noncognitive Factors, Richard Hilton Turner

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Since the late 1990s the nursing field has experienced increased demand for RN’s as well as a number of internal and external factors that have worsened this problem. College admissions officers have struggled to identify those students who are most likely to persist in an associate degree nursing (ADN) program. Estimates of programmatic attrition vary, but fall somewhere between 25-50%. A great deal of research has been expended in an attempt to determine which preadmission variables are most likely to indicate programmatic success. Unfortunately, no “best set” of admissions variables has been identified. The purpose of this research was to …

Problems Experienced In The Second And Third Months After Discharge From A Heart Failure-Related Hospitalization, Joan S. Grant, Lucinda J. Graven

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

The purpose of this study was to identify high-priority problems experienced by individuals during the second and third month after discharge from an acute care facility for heart failure. This descriptive, exploratory study, an extension of a previous analysis that examined high-priority problems in the first month, comprised 19 participants who were assigned to an intervention group that received a randomized, 12-week-pilot coping partnership (COPE-HF) intervention. A trained research nurse provided the intervention, and participants used a standard list to identify high-priority heart failure-related problems. Quantitative and content data analysis was conducted. While the highest-priority problem continued to be managing …

Persistent Misconceptions About Mutations Among Graduate Nursing Students, Jane Garvin, Beverly Collins

Nursing Collection

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine the ongoing misconceptions about mutations, an area of rising public interest, among graduate nursing students.

Design

Using a prospective cohort design, graduate students entering a public university in the Fall of 2014 were followed to graduation in the Fall of 2016.

Methods

Knowledge of mutations was assessed with an anonymous pre-test and post-test using three items from the Genomic Nursing Concept Inventory - 2011 beta version developed by Ward. Differences in pre-test and post-test scores were assessed by T-test. Post-test items with > 30% marked incorrectly were examined further; the most frequent …

A Preliminary Examination Of Adaptive Case Studies In Nursing Pathophysiology, Julie F. Hinkle, Patsy Moskal

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

Case studies are a valuable instructional tool frequently used in nursing to allow students to analyze clinical problems based on real-world scenarios. This study examines the use of the Realizeit adaptive platform to create case study scenarios for pathophysiology, a course required in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. The data gathered as students progressed through the adaptive content--time on task, number of times cases accessed, and scores on each case--provided valuable information on student behavior and engagement with the three case studies. Results of this preliminary study indicate that adaptive case studies are promising for pathophysiology and system analytics confirmed that …

Caring In The Margins: A Scholarship Of Accompaniment For Advanced Transcultural Nursing Practice, Ruth C. Enestvedt, Kathleen M. Clark, Kaija Freborg, Joyce P. Miller, Cheryl J. Leuning, Deborah K. Shuhmacher, Kristin M. Mchale, Katherine A. Baumgartner, Susan L. Loushin

Faculty Authored Articles

Nurses must learn essential skills based in transcultural nursing to address issues of equity and social justice. The development of a model for nursing practice for an urban nurse-led drop-in center for individuals experiencing marginalization provides an opportunity for student nurses to learn transcultural nursing skills that shifts care from acknowledging the need of others to accompanying others on their health journey. The practice model provides the opportunity for undergraduate and graduate nursing students at Augsburg University to de-emphasize tasks and build relationships. Students learn to listen to others' stories and acknowledge their struggles in the margins. Four stages of …

Nurses Alumni Association Bulletin, Fall 2018, Susan Albrecht Curcio

Nursing Alumni Bulletins

2018 – 2019 Meeting Dates Calendar

2019 Annual Luncheon and Meeting Notice

Officers, Committee Chairs, and Satellite

2018 President’s Message

Treasurer’s Report

Resume of Minutes

Office News

Committee Reports

• Social
• Relief Trust Fund
• Satellite – Harrisburg Satellite Area
• Scholarship
• By-Laws
• Nominating
• Bulletin

Jefferson Office of Alumni Relations

Annual Giving

Janet C. Hindson Award

• Janet C. Hindson Award Winner

News About and From Our Graduates

Pearls of Wisdom

Brain Health by YOU...and by Music!

Three Months at Byberry

Happy Birthday – To Be 80 or More

Annual Luncheon

• 1969 50th Anniversary Class List for 2019 Annual Luncheon
• Luncheon Photos
• Annual Luncheon …

Intraoperative Ketamine Administration: An Adjunctive Therapy That Reduces Postoperative Pain For Patients Undergoing Spinal Surgery, Brittany Pierce

Doctoral Projects

In 2017, the United States Department of Health and Human Services declared that the country was experiencing an opioid crisis (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018). As a result of this phenomenon, healthcare providers are examining how they are managing pain and researching new avenues for the treatment of pain. Anesthesia providers are in a unique position to help reduce postoperative pain and ultimately the development of chronic pain. This doctoral project was conducted in order to write an evidence-based policy that directs and educates anesthesia providers in the administration of intraoperative ketamine to reduce postoperative pain in …

Nur 3110 The Nurse Leader Within, Syllabus, Linda Ann Paradiso

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for NUR 3110 The Nurse Leader Within - a 15 week semester course for pre-licensure nursing students or nurses earning their baccalaureate degree. Every nurse is a leader, regardless of title or position within an organization. In this course you will learn to develop your voice and skills in order to lead teams of people who care for persons in need of any type of medical care.

Improving Communication Between Child Life Services And Nursing On An Inpatient Pediatric Unit, Sherryann St. Pierre, Elizabeth Shaughnessy, Bethany Kay, Barbara Bush Children's Hospital, Mark Parker, Suneela Nayak, Ruth Hanselman, Stephen Tyzik, Amy Sparks

Operations Transformation

IMPROVING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CHILD LIFE SERVICES AND NURSING ON AN INPATIENT HOSPITAL UNIT

Effective communication between patient caregivers has been shown to reduce stress and trauma related to hospitalization and subsequent improved outcomes. An HCAHP score for a 30 bed acute inpatient pediatric unit illustrated the confusion faced by children as a result of nursing and care life specialists not working together as a team.

A root cause analysis identified a number of issues as to why patients were not benefitting fully from child life services. Several counter measures were instituted with the goals of improving the HCAHP score and …

Improving The Interprofessional Relationship Between Nurses And Speech-Language Pathologists: A Pilot Study, Christina Hamling, Kristy Weissling

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The research presented in this thesis explores the impact of interprofessional education on undergraduate nursing and speech-language pathology students with an overall goal of improving the interprofessional relationship between the two fields. Utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods in the form of a pre-test, educational materials, live guided observation, and post-tests, the researchers found an increase in the nursing students ’ ability to identify the role of the speech-language pathologist in a medical setting (knowledge). There was also an increase in the speech-language pathology students’ ability to understand how and when to communicate with nurses in a medical setting (knowledge).

Family Health History: What’S The Best Tool?, Dr. Gaye Raye, Dr. Karen Whitt

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to mentor undergraduate nursing students as they worked on a project to identify the most effective tools for collecting family health history and to assess the impact of knowledge of family health history on preventive health behaviors. This project helped to identify tools that can be used to collect family health history and provided evidence that informs clinical practice. This project provided multiple mentoring and learning opportunities for undergraduate nursing students. Those mentored had opportunities to prepare manuscripts and present study findings at conferences and directly see how evidence is translated into practice. Mentored …

Learning History: Understanding And Facilitating Improvement In Clinical Microsystems, Dr. Bret Lyman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The academic outcomes of the proposal were generally met (and exceeded). The proposal specified that four students would be involved in the mentoring environment, yet we found it possible to include eight students in faculty-mentored research efforts. Although only three students applied for ORCA grant funding (rather than the proposed four), the MEG Grant was sufficient to support nine students’ professional presentations and six students’ peer-reviewed publications. Five students will be continuing to work on projects made possible by this grant, including writing for publication and developing/testing research instruments based on our findings. We anticipate all ten students will ultimately …

The Lived Experience Of Traumatic Amputation For Haitian Adults, Margarett Alexandre

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Amputation of a limb is a traumatic and disabling condition that impacts the lives of people worldwide. Trauma remains the leading cause of major limb amputation, second only to Diabetes Mellitus and dysvascular complications (Ziegler-Graham, MacKenzie, Ephraim, Travison, & Bookmeyer, 2008). Little is known about the experience of traumatic amputation for Haitian Adults, therefore this study was to understand the lived experience of traumatic amputation in Haiti. The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to investigate the lived experience of traumatic amputations as talked about by adults who suffered an amputation because of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Eight …

Nutrition Education To Improve Health Outcomes In Community Dwelling Older Adults, Sara Giessinger

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

The proportion of people age 60 and over is growing faster than other age group, and will double by 2050 from approximately 605 million to 2 billion worldwide, in addition to the 80 and over population quadrupling by the same time. Non-communicable diseases such as obesity, cancer, coronary heart and lung disease, diabetes, hypertension, insulin resistance, and hyperlipidemia,represent 63% of deaths annually worldwide. Due to the immense contact nurses have with clients, they play a key role in screening, referrals and education to guide this demographic to improved health outcomes through nutrition and physical activity interventions (Xiaoyue, Parker, Ferguson, …

Awareness And Knowledge Of Cochlear Implants Among Speech-Language Pathologists, Kimberly Ward, Kimberly Grubbs, Amitava Biswas

Faculty Publications

Speech-Language Pathologists work closely with individuals who have received cochlear implants across a multitude of settings which include early childhood education centers, schools, hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. However, previous research suggests that Speech-Language Pathologists do not have the adequate skills or knowledge to work with clients who have received cochlear implants. To assess whether Speech-Language Pathologists in the state of Mississippi had similar results as in the previous studies, a questionnaire was used to assess knowledge on cochlear implants. The results are consistent with previous studies which suggest that there is an overall lack in cochlear implant competency, specifically …

The Impact Of A Poverty Simulation On Practical Nursing Students’ Attitudes Towards Poverty, Jaime Crabb

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Poverty is a multi-faceted global problem. Nurses and providers are front-line caregivers for this vulnerable population. In order to provide effective care, individuals must understand their own attitudes towards poverty. The purpose of this study was to evaluate for changes in Practical Nursing students’ attitudes towards poverty with the use of a poverty simulation based upon the Experiential Learning Theory. Participants were surveyed using the Short Form Attitudes towards Poverty (SFATP) tool. The ELT espouses that the best learning occurs when students actively engage in an experience, reflect upon it, and then apply that learning to future experiences. Statistical significance …

The Path Of Stroke Care: Nurse Education Materials For Unitypoint Health Trinity Medical Center, Nicole Montgomery

Celebration of Learning

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. About 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke every year. National best practice measures regarding stroke care are promoted through the quality and education department at UnityPoint Health Trinity Medical Center. Trinity’s nurses are encouraged to update their skills at the annual Spring Fling informational fair. Through working with the quality and education department, informational materials regarding the care path of a stroke patient were created and delivered in order to educate nurses about these national best practice measures. This project utilized interpersonal communication models to …

Sepsis, John Bell

Nursing Student Class Projects (Formerly MSN)

The pathophysiology of sepsis is related to the patient’s immune response. It involves an imbalance between pro-inflammatory and antiinflammatory responses, causing damage by a variety of mechanisms (Keegan & Wira, 2014).

Assessing The Impact Of A Partnership‐Based Work/Study Nursing Upgrade Programme In A Low And Middle‐Income Setting, Sharon Brownie, Samwel Gatimu, Abdul Haq Wahedna, Isabel Kambo, Eunice Ndirangu

School of Nursing & Midwifery, East Africa

Aim: To evaluate the 15‐years impact of the work‐study nursing upgrading programme in East Africa.

Background: Working nurses in Africa are often primary family income earners, with limited ability to leave jobs and upgrade qualifications. In 2001, the university established a work‐study upgrade programme for enrolled‐ and diploma‐level nurses, allowing them to upgrade their qualifications while continuing to work and support families. Donor partnerships provided scholarships to further increase programme access.

Design: A mixed method design was used involving an online alumni survey and 24 interviews and 23 focus groups with 172 purposively selected representatives of nursing graduates, employers, regulatory …

Implementing A Caps Simulation To Increase Nursing Education Practice Students’ Self-Awareness Of Attitudes And Beliefs About Poverty, Melissa Ehmke

Dissertations

Problem. The purpose of this project is to determine if college students who are currently in nursing school, will benefit from the addition of a poverty simulation to positively influence their self-awareness and individual-level beliefs and attitudes towards poverty, therefore being able to serve those in poverty fully and guide them to appropriate resources.

Methods. Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Doctoral Nursing Practice (DNP) students participated in a three-hour Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS). A twenty-one item Attitude Toward Poverty Scale short form (ATPS) survey was completed pre and post-simulation participation.

Results. Significant improvements resulted in three of …

Infuse!_Volume 2_Number 1_2018, College Of Nursing

Infuse! College of Nursing Magazine

No abstract provided.

Using A Kindle To Improve Parental Perceptions Of Pain In Their Children: A Dnp Scholarly Project, Andrew Gearhart

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Patient satisfaction is an important goal for health care providers, as it is associated with treatment success, and patients are more likely to adhere to medical treatments when they are satisfied. Emergency departments are among the lowest ranked healthcare settings nationwide in terms of patient satisfaction. Pediatric patients often experience pain and/or anxiety while in the hospital setting and are at an increased risk of having unpleasant experiences while receiving care. The purpose of this DNP scholarly project is to determine whether the introduction of a Kindle Fire tablet was effective in decreasing parental perceptions of pain while their child …