Nursing Commons^™

Patient Safety In The Ambulatory Oncology Environment: A Teamstepps® Journey, Tammi Phelps Hick

Nursing Theses and Capstone Projects

Problem: Children have reported that pain and anxiety were the most difficult part of hospitalization, and under treatment of pain and anxiety can have short and long term effects on health outcomes. Most healthcare professionals recognize a link between emotional health and physical health, but this may be especially true for pediatric patients who may not be able to marshal adequate coping skills due to their developmental age. Providing age appropriate alternatives, such as distraction therapy, may result in less invasive treatments for pediatric patients. Distraction therapy is an effective non-pharmacological intervention that is often under-utilized in the acute care …

Floating Nurses To Specialty Areas, Deborah S. Hickman

Nursing Theses and Capstone Projects

As the largest group of health care providers, nurses play a vital role in the safety and satisfaction of patients. Despite this vital role, the nursing shortage continues to grow. As a result of this shortage and to fix staffing insufficiencies, nurses are frequently assigned to work in an area that they are not familiar with. This reassignment of a nurse to a different unit from their normally assigned unit is referred to as "floating." Nurses that are reassigned to a different unit from their normally assigned unit are referred to as "float nurses." Some healthcare professionals believe the use …

Medication Errors: It's A Matter Of Time, Thomas D. Smith Jr.

Nursing Theses and Capstone Projects

A retrospective review of medication errors is presented as a measurement tool. Times of medication errors are separated into categories. The numbers of errors are associated with the numbers of medication administrations. The first data set contains errors that occurred within the first 8 hours of a 12-hour shift and the second data set contains errors that occurred during the last 4 hours of a 12-hour shift.

Data was obtained from a 108 bed critical care hospital in the southeastern United States. A time period will be reviewed between the months of September 2010 until August 2011. All reports of …

Evaluation Of Purposeful Rounding On Patient Falls, Stephanie Spittle

Nursing Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of routine purposeful rounding on the total number of falls on a medical unit in an acute care hospital. The project was prompted by high fall rates within the hospital and the implementation of the purposeful rounding initiative. Staff training was provided in a two hour educational class which covered the purpose for the initiative as well as the specific functions that must be performed with each round. To evaluate the effectiveness of purposeful rounding on patient falls, pre and post rounding fall rates were compared. These initial results were …