Review the clinical stories in the beginning of chapters 17 and 21 of the ebook Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice: A Practical Guide for Nursing from this module’s readings. Choose one of the clinical stories and write a 2 pages initial post answering the following discussion prompts.
Sara has worked on an adult medical-surgical unit for 2 years. The patient population is a mixture of elderly, chronically ill patients with a variety of acute medical illnesses and general adult surgical patients. She is caring for LH, a 78-year-old female who is 5 days post-thoracotomy for lung cancer. LH was transferred from the intensive care unit to the Saras unit 2 days ago. When helping LH to bathe, Sara noticed several areas of skin breakdown on her back and sacrum. The wounds on the skin covering her spine look as if a single layer of skin has been torn off, but the wound on her sacrum looks different. Sara observes that it is a shallow, full-thickness crater with a red to pink bed. Although LH walks about 15 feet twice per day and sits in a chair for 15 minutes after her walk, she spends the rest of the day in a standard hospital bed, requiring help to turn. She is still quite weak from her surgery and complicated early recovery and requires oral pain medication every 4 hours. She is consuming only clear liquids, tolerates them poorly, and has a distended abdomen. Sara wonders if there was something else that she and her fellow nurses could have done to prevent the breaks in LHs skin integrity.
Discussion Prompts
Identify at least one additional problem this patient might experience. Provide a brief overview of the problem and how it will negatively impact the patient or their family.
Research EBP guidelines available to address the problem. Provide a summary of at least one guideline that you found. What is the expected outcome, or how will this positively impact the patient or their family?