Hematology

Business Quality: Improving PCA Pump Safety Historically, pain has been underreported and undertreated, specifically in acute care settings. According to by Tran, Ciarkowski, Wagner, and Stevenson (2012), nearly half of post-surgical patients experience insufficient pain relief while using a more conservative intramuscular (IM) opioid therapy. With the 1963 discovery of intravenous (IV) pain relief as a better option for controlling pain, patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) technologies…

In addition, despite the hospital having limited financial resources and being small should not be a limiting factor for quality and patient safety. Outdated equipment, visual reads and out of range hematology readings could result in the patient receiving wrong medication, incorrect diagnosis, and unnecessary test, lost of credibility, providers and financial revenue. Also, this could open the health care facility to lawsuits. Although during tough…

Sending people to the hospital for more than 100 years, leukemia affects a high percent of earth’s population. Researchers and scientists work insistently every day to help patients diagnosed with leukemia. Before the knowledge of this illness and its causing factors, many other known “ailments” aided to the treatment of the infamous disease. Medicine, as many people know, had not contributed to society until around the 16th and 17th century, therefore viciously increasing the health of many,…

Autonomy is one of the ethical principles that is important in nursing practice. According to Weiss and Tappen, “autonomy is the freedom to make decisions for oneself”(2015, p.54). In 1990, the US Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act which permitted individuals to make their decisions regarding medical treatment. The individual has to be competent to make the medical decision or have a durable power of attorney to appoint someone to make decisions for them when they're deemed…

Incorporating this writer’s proposed solution of using alcohol disinfectant caps (ADCs) to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) or any new evidence-based practice (EBP) into an organization is a multi-step process that includes: planning, engaging, implementing, and evaluating (Spring, Ferguson, Pender & Starin, 2011). This paper will focus on creating an ADC implementation plan, including methods used to obtain approval and procure proposal support; a background on…

Introduction: Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders observed approximately in 1-3% of population, it has affected around 70 million people worldwide and nearly 90% of them are found in developing regions (Ngugi et al; 2010). The corresponding figure for India was estimated to be more than 12 million with 1% prevalence contributes nearly one-sixth of the global burden (Senthil Amudhan et al., 2015). Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized by an enduring predisposition…

Treatment plan for a cancer patient As a social worker, there are few things that are more traumatic than taking care of and seeing the suffering of a child with a terminal illness. It is even more painful when that disease is cancer, and the young child has to go through the ravages of the illness and treatment. Cancer treatment at this point in the world’s medical evolution is sometimes as brutal on the body as the disease itself. For a child, it hurts and disrupts his or her life. The child…

Central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs) are preventable, serious, and potentially fatal infections that affect thousands of hospitalized patients each year. Weiner et al. (2016) state approximately 20,686 infections were reported by healthcare facilities across the United States (US) in 2014. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ, 2014) estimates CLABSIs carry an 18% mortality rate, equivalent to 3,723.5 fatalities from the infection based on the 2014 hospital…

Exploring 30-day children?s readmission rate in a general hospital. K van Driel1*, GS de Wolf2, R. van Schaik3 1 Division woman and child, Diakonessenhuis Utrecht, the Netherlands 2Department of clinical methods and Public Health, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 3Division woman and child, Diakonessenhuis Utrecht, the Netherlands * Corresponding author: K van Driel, Division Woman and Child Diakonessenhuis…

Introduction: According to the North Dakota Cancer Coalition (2011), one out of two men and one out of three women will develop cancer in their lifetimes. Research estimates at least 10% of cancer patients do not receive effective relief of their cancer pain identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) three-step ladder guidelines, and an upwards to 30% of patients receive poor pain control, especially in their last year of life (Raphael et al., 2010). For patients with refractory cancer…