Tips December

Looking for resources to help educate your staff on today's hottest topics?

Want to know what your colleagues have to say and what they are doing to address the issues?

This section highlights:

Comments and Training Tips from your colleagues
"Nursing" in the news
Links to other valuable resources
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The next issue will focus on.....

HAND HYGIENE

January 2003 Highlights:

January 19th - 25th
Healthy Weight Week

Cervical Health Awareness Month

National Birth Defects Prevention Month

National Volunteer Blood Donor Month

February 2003 Highlights:

February 10th - 14th
Cardiac Rehabilitation Week

American Heart Month

Kids E.N.T. (Ear, Nose, Throat) Month

National Children's Dental Health Month

Training Tips and Comments:

Siderails as a Potential Restraint

"Siderails as a potential restraint was a significant change in philosophy for our staff. Prior to the changes to the JCAHO and especially CMS regulations, we did not consider them a restraint. Inservicing on this change was completed in October of 2000 and staff continue to ask questions related to siderails as a restraint. It is the intent for the siderails that determines whether it is or is not a restraint. We developed a siderail decision tree, adapted from a journal article to help differentiate this for staff. Basically, when four siderails are placed in the up position to keep a patient in the bed who is both willing and able to get out of the bed, then it is a restraint. In this case, our restraint policy would not apply but supportive documentation is required. When siderails are used for protective purposes such as transport, when the bed is in the high position, a sedated or fresh post-op or for a patient on seizure precautions then the restraint policy would not apply."

Eileen Costantinou, MSN, RN
Professional Practice Consultant
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
St. Louis, MO

Ideas on Patient Education

"When I worked in patient education, we did a 45 minute talk to all of the incoming nurses at nursing orientation. We talked about our process and our patient education infrastructure. They had a section in their orientation manuals that included information on how to access Care Notes, with some sample Care Notes/Drug Notes, our closed circuit TV guide, some basic tips on making each moment a teachable moment, some sample flowsheets to document teaching, and tips to call Language Line if they needed an interpreter. We did a quick computer demo to show them how to access patient education handouts and flowsheets on the computer. Then, we included an interactive component. We broke them up into small groups and gave them patient teaching scenarios. We let them talk about it as a small group, then pull back together and share as a large group some of the barriers to learning (emotional barriers, language barriers, special needs, physical disabilities, environmental barriers, etc.) Then they each discussed their strategies and plans for teaching. They then documented it all on a sample flowsheet. You can give a prize to the group who gets all of their documentation done the fastest, which often only takes seconds when there is a prize as a motivator! It makes the point that it takes very little time to document; it is a small investment to make to reduce liability and to give yourself credit for all the teaching that you are doing."

Amy Vega, MBA, MHA, RHEd
Director of Allied and Public Health Education
Southern Regional AHEC
Fayetteville, NC

Utilizing Patient Handouts

"We had purchased Envision, Inc.'s Partners in Care: Six Part Patient Education video programs. Our patient education committee came up with some excellent ideas on how to use the included patient handouts with our patients. On our letterhead, we made cover pages to attach to the handouts with brief description."