Research problem


A study of the characteristics of nursing practice in ICU settings reveals information about the ways in which nurses, patients, and others respond to the complex, stressful, and highly technical critical care environment. A study of critical care nursing is also a valuable source of information about the interactions between nurses and patients and their families, physicians, and others; the actual nursing care delivered; and the ethical dimensions of critical care practice. The nursing literature reflects a young, self-absorbed discipline largely concerned with professional standards, education, leadership, and performance issues (Cassell 2005). The human, interpersonal experience of nursing practice and the knowledge inherent in practice have received less attention. As new specialties, including neurosurgery, organ transplantation, burn treatment, and trauma care, developed, specialized intensive care units emerged to care for patients in these units. Nursing was designed to support the physical and psychosocial needs of patients moving through periods of crisis resolution toward recovery, rehabilitation, or death. The common thread through this trend toward specialization was the practice of expert nursing for twenty-four hours a day, in increasingly complex environments. A specialty organization, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, emerged in the 1970s. This group published a professional journal, defined critical care practice and education standards, conducted national meetings, provided regional and local workshops and chapter organizations, promoted a certification examination for critical care nurses, and sponsored critical care nursing research (Murray 2000). This paper is a proposal to analyze the improving theory practice gap in Intensive care units.


Aims and objectives


1.    Understand the situation in ICUs.


2.    Determine the changes that happened to ICUs.


3.    Know the reason behind the theory practice gap.


4.    Understand the improvement in the theory practice.


5.    Analyze the improving theory practice gap in Intensive care units.


Literature review


The critical care unit has become increasingly complex and highly technical. Nurses have become the major treatment modality in the critical care unit because of skill, competence in judgment, and round-the-clock presence. The economics of medical futility needs to be seriously addressed, since intensivists will be called upon more often to justify their medical decisions for continuing life support for severely or terminally ill patients. Critical care units have not been expanding and limited facilities for patients on life-support exist in the acute or less costly post-acute settings. Providers will need to be encouraged to explore cost-effective medical decisions since these protocols may be in conflict with their compliance to the Hippocratic oath, as well as with potential threats of litigation in the event that the aggressive treatment has a remote chance of improving the health status of the patient, or at least do no harm (Zalumas 2003). Team management of patients can also reduce length of stay in the critical care unit. Researchers have shown that, by implementing a multidisciplinary team that manages hopelessly ill critical care unit patients, critical care unit length of stay and costs can decrease. Patients in a state of relative clinical stability could benefit from removal from the critical care unit to an environment that is less intensive and invasive while being monitored by a multidisciplinary rehabilitation team that crafts an individualized treatment protocol for each patient. This approach can address the discharge planning problem often seen with frail or elderly patients. A major problem in discharge planning is the coordination of post-acute services in home or in other less costly long-term care facilities. While home health services and long-term care facility costs are one-tenth and one-third of critical care unit costs, respectively, placement issues cause prolonged stays in the acute care setting (Davis 2001).


Methodology


Sample collection


To determine the number of respondents that will be asked to participate and give information regarding the study convenience sampling will be used. Convenience sampling means to collect or interview individuals who actually experience the phenomenon. Convenience sampling will focus on individuals that experienced diabetes mellitus or has someone in the family that experienced such disease.


Methodology/Data Collection


Surveys will the primary method of data collection.  Internet surveys would be used. Internet surveys have been both hyped for their capabilities and criticized for the security issues it brings. Internet surveys require less finances since there would be no printing of paper and there would be no need to travel just to gather data. Internet surveys would also require less time for the researchers and the respondents.


Data Analysis


            The will be analyzed through descriptive statistics and it would focus on graphical and tabular analysis. Tabular analysis involves presenting the results of analysis in tables. Frequently the information contained in a table can be presented as a graph.


References


Cassell, J 2005, Life and death in intensive care, Temple


University Press, Philadelphia.


 


Davis, JB (eds.) 2001, The social economics of health care,


Routledge, London.


 


Murray, JF 2000, Intensive care: A doctor’s journal, University


of California Press, Berkeley, CA


 


Zalumas, J 2003, Caring in crisis: An oral history of critical


care nursing, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.


 



Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com


0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
Top