Time Management in Cardiac Units

Time Management in Cardiac Units

 

            Today’s generation has led to different and a variety of improvements and developments in terms of the treatment of specific diseases. One of such diseases is heart or coronary disease, which serves to be one of the fatal diseases ever to hit humankind. Aside from heart bypasses and the use of complicated instruments in the treatment of heart or cardiac diseases, heart transplants and even genetic engineering have been used in order to make heart patients survive the ordeal. However, due to further sophistication and advancement in medicine and technology, a number of changes in cardiac disease treatments have been recently discovered. In this regard, the role of nurses in terms of providing healthcare is crucial and indispensable.

 

Changes in Cardiac Nursing

            It has been reported that the nature of cardiac nursing is changing, as new development in cardiology and cardiac surgery has been implemented, and such changes must equip nurses in order to adapt to the new changes. The development of medical treatments for cardiac arrest gave birth to the coronary care unit or CCU and coronary care nursing. The advent of coronary artery bypass surgery saw the setting up of the cardiac intensive unit or CICU, while the introduction of thrombolytic therapies and interventional cardiology has resulted in shifting the focus of coronary care nursing to infarct size reduction and the prevention of infarction in patients with unstable angina. With the development of these specialized units, an extra dimension was added to the traditional role of nurses, which involves their expertise and development in terms of the use of high technology equipments. A nurse not only had to be versed in his or her traditional skills in patient management, but also had to deal with the utilization of rapidly advancing technology that such units housed. In order to do this, specialist training courses were developed to be able to provide nurses the technical knowledge, in order to operate the equipments and to effectively nurse patients or clients in this new environment (Wallis and McVeigh, 1997).

            In this regard, the changes in terms of the implementation of cardiac nursing and changes in the treatment of patients suffering from cardiac problems must become aware to the nursing profession. The specialist training courses provided to nurses would be one good way to increase and develop the knowledge of nurses in terms of providing healthcare to cardiac patients. However, aside from providing additional knowledge and skills improvement to nurses, another way of allowing them to provide needed care to cardiac patients is through effective and efficient time management. This is because time management involves prioritizing the needed things to do, and planning and organizing the activities and priorities that must be done by a nurse in order to render effective and efficient services and healthcare to his or her patients in the cardiac unit. Effective time management practice is needed by nurses because aside from the mentioned use of time management, another crisis faced by nurses in line with the changes in cardiac nursing is the fact that they lose control in terms of assisting their patients and his or her spouse through providing relevant information as a form of education. Information giving is said to be one way in which the nurses provide structure to patients and their spouses regarding the development of the disease. This information giving is sometimes very extensive and at other times very brief, but is always tailored to the needs of the patient or relative. Previous research has identified the provision of information and teaching patients about their illness, as key components of caring, particularly in the CCU (Wallis and McVeigh, 1997). However, the upsurge in the number of patients admitted in CCUs enable cardiac nurses to lessen information giving, thus, lessening the chance for them to provide therapeutic communication to patients and relatives. Thus, in this sense, a particular nursing care model that involves effective time management must be used.

 

Use of Nursing Care Model and Relevance

            In relation to the use of effective time management, a particular nursing care model can be used, which can be an effective way of addressing the changes in cardiac nursing. This nursing care model is the Nursing-Sensitive Indicator Model, which involves indicators that are sensitive to the input of nursing care. The Nursing-Sensitive Indicator Model would allow nursing professionals to build collaborative relationships with hospitals, develop reliable methods for data collection, engage nurses in quality-related activities, build a database for nursing-sensitive indicators, and educate all consumers of care about nursing (Foley, 2001). The different nursing-sensitive indicators include a mix of registered nurses and unlicensed staff caring for patients in acute care settings, total nursing care hours provided per patient day, pressure ulcers, patient falls, nosocomial infection rate, patient satisfaction with overall care, patient satisfaction with nursing care, patient satisfaction with pain management, patient satisfaction with educational information, and staff nurse satisfaction (“Patient Care Services”, 2008). In this sense, in order for a nursing practitioner to be able to do such activities and aim for the satisfaction of his or her patient, the nurse must be able to utilize effective time management. One example in relation to this is the provision of cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR system to a patient having a cardiac arrest prior to defibrillation (Jacobs et al., 2005). Another example of a clinical trial is to provide therapeutic hypothermia after cardiac arrest (Bernard, 2004). In both examples of clinical trials, time management of the nursing practitioner is needed the most, as time is the fatal enemy of the person, who relies on the effective technique to be used by medical and nursing practitioners for survival.

            Using the model mentioned, it can be perceived that a particular nurse would be able to acquire and develop skills and knowledge regarding the nursing practice, particularly with the changes in cardiac nursing. This is because through the model, along with time management skills, the nursing practitioner would be able to set his or her priorities, in relation to the needs of the patient and the relatives. In this regard, the nursing practitioner would be focusing and aiming for quality customer or patient service that would involve providing needed education for the patient and the relatives, and providing conventional healthcare to the cardiac patient. Aside from this, setting the priorities of nurses in relation to nursing healthcare and education would allow him or her to gather relevant data regarding the condition and needs of the patient. As such, the nurse would be able to relay the relevant information to other healthcare practitioners, who can provide adequate services to the patient. This is related to the ANMC competence standards, as the use of the nursing care model also involves the wholistic development of the nursing practitioner through policies and complex projects that would be used in order to address related issues.

 

Evaluation of Research Articles

            The article written by Wallis and McVeigh (1997) emphasizes the role of nurses in both caring for cardiac patients and in developing their technical skills in relation to the use of high technology equipments. The article presents an understanding that through changes in cardiac nursing, time management would be instilled in nurses, as the nurses would have to learn new technologies while caring for cardiac patients at the same time. The second article is related to the Nursing-Sensitive Indicator Model, which is said to improve healthcare delivery and financing attitudes in medical institutions. This is because the model aims at the improvement of three critical points, namely, patient-centered outcomes, nursing-centered intervention measures, and system-centered measures (Norma and Kizer, 2005). In this regard, the time management skills of nurses come in handy, in order to address such issues effectively.

 

 

References

Bernard, S.A. (2004). “Therapeutic Hypothermia after Cardiac Arrest”. The Medical Journal of Australia, 181(9): 468-469.

Foley, M.E. (2001). “Nurses: Assuring Quality Care for all Populations”. A New Association for a New Millenium, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, 1-56.

Jacobs, I.G., Finn, J.C., Oxer, H.F. and Jelinek, G.A. (2005). “CPR before Defibrillation in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Randomized Trial”. Emergency Medicine Australasia, 17, 39-45.

Lang, N.M. and Kizer, K.W. (2005). “Nursing-Sensitive Quality Performance Measures: A Key to Health Care Improvement?”. AAACN Viewpoint, Mar/Apr, 1-5.

“Patient Care Services”. (2008). Massachusetts General Hospital, 1-13.

Wallis, M. and McVeigh, J. (1997). “Recent Changes in Acute Cardiac Nursing: Implications for Education and Administration”. St. Vincent Hospital.

 

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