Nursing interventions in the post-operative time period including psychological and emotional support, adverse event education, and instructions for follow-up care contribute patient satisfaction, safety, and quality of life. However, the time spent in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and hospital continues to shorten around the world to reduce health care spending and improve patient outcomes. Nurses conducting research during the important post-operative recovery period need to utilize unique techniques and emerging technologies to contact, recruit and collect data outside of the hospital setting including the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) platform.
This paper describes the feasibility and acceptability, facilitators and barriers of the software application, REDCap, to complete a repeated-measures, descriptive correlational study in patients undergoing outpatient breast cancer surgeries.
The recruitment, data collection and storage were completed utilizing the secure REDCap Platform. The Institutional Research Board (IRB)-approved study was a repeated-measures, descriptive, correlational study with data collection at three time points. The data points aligned with important transitions and routine visits to improve data collection feasibility and increase relevance to clinical practice.
The sample consisted of women diagnosed with breast cancer undergoing breast conserving surgery between August 15 and October 15, 2020. There were 123 potential participants, of which 76 started the surveys and 75 participated (61%) responded and participated in the study on Post-operative Day 1. Fifty-nine participants (78%) completed the surveys on post-operative Day 14.
As the frequency of outpatient treatment increases, nurses conducting post-operative research will need to collect the data outside of the hospital setting.
Email provides a method of studying new phenomena by recruiting participants, providing information about the study, and collecting results in a non-traditional setting. REDCap provides a method to facilitate nursing research through a securely encrypted integrated process.
Pressure injury prevention is complex, and rates continue to rise. Checklists reduce human error, improve adherence and standardization with complex processes, focus attention on evidence-based practices derived from clinical practice guidelines and are arranged in a systematic manner to manage the entirety of a patient's risk for preventable outcomes. The original Standardized Pressure Injury Prevention Protocol was created to provide a checklist of pressure injury prevention measures but needed revision and validation.
This article describes the revision and content validity testing of the Standardized Pressure Injury Prevention Protocol Checklist 2.0 that took place in 2022.
Using the International 2019 Clinical Practice Guideline as a foundation, items were identified/revised, and expert review of the items was obtained. The Standardized Pressure Injury Prevention Protocol 2.0 underwent three rounds of revision by experts from the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel. A panel of eight national experts completed the content validity survey. Individual item content validity index and total scale content validity index were used to summarize the content validity survey scores.
The individual item content validity index scores ranged from 0.5 to 1.0. One item (using a mirror to look at heels) was rated as 0.5, three items were 0.75, 20 items were 0.875 and 23 items were 1.0. The item scoring 0.5 was deleted. Those items scoring 0.75 were revised using the content experts' recommendations. The total scale content validity index was 0.93.
The Standardized Pressure Injury Prevention Protocol 2.0 provides a standardized checklist of evidence-based items that operationalize a rigorous clinical practice guideline for the prevention of pressure injuries. Early intervention using a standardized approach and evidence-based checklist that can be integrated into the workflow of the direct-care nurse and provider provides the best opportunity for successful and sustainable pressure injury prevention.
US hospitals are focussing more than ever on meeting important patient social needs. Patients often make multiple trips to hospitals related to nonmedical issues that could likely be averted through the increased integration of case management strategies. Although the percentage of hospitals using advanced practice nurses (APNs) in this role is still relatively low, we explore the idea that employing APN case managers improves hospitals' abilities to alleviate hospital overusage.
The study used a cross-sectional design.
We used the 2021 American Hospital Association data set, which includes 5855 hospitals, of which 4315 were general medical hospitals.
Using descriptive statistics and Poisson regression, we discovered that employing APN case managers in US acute care hospitals is associated with an increased likelihood that hospitals will implement strategies addressing patient social needs.
When hospitals screen patients for social needs and formulate and implement internal and external strategies designed to meet patient social needs, many stakeholders stand to benefit. Should more hospitals observe such benefits when utilizing an APN case manager model, it will likely proliferate, and demand for APNs could accelerate further.
Following the reduction in unnecessary patient visits and readmissions, hospitals' scarce resources are freed up to offer timely care to patients that are truly medically in need. Furthermore, financial performance improves under this scenario. APNs play a critical role in enabling hospitals to realize such benefits.
No patient or public contribution. We used archival data in this study.