Nurses: Caring patients with Injuries

Nurses perform a vital and strategic role at the forefront of care. Nurses use their capability to assess and treat wounds and ostomies. PTs reassure ambulation and proper positioning of patients, along with promoting optimal function. Pharmacists have the ability to examine a patient’s in-hospital and home medications for interactions, communicate with physicians and encourage any changes in medications. OTs assists with patient transfers and re-positioning while providing helpful resources and equipment recommendations. Registered dieticians and nutritionists assist in wound healing by performing a thorough nutritional assessment, looking for signs of malnutrition or other dietary deficiencies. This assessment determines nutrition needs that can aid in the healing process.

“Skin and Body injuries are extremely prevalent,”

Re-positioning patients every two hours is a high priority to avoid pressure injuries. The need to examine potential problem areas of the body also is a necessity for healthcare clinicians. Some areas are ones clinicians may not expect or regularly check. Hospital-acquired pressure injuries are among the conditions considered preventable by the Centres for Medicaid and Medicare Services. Thus, healthcare facilities are not reimbursed for treating these injuries when they are acquired by a patient in the hospital. A thorough skin assessment is very important when a patient arrives. This protects a healthcare facility from potential litigation and also serves as a baseline for caring for the patient. That assessment is critical to the healthcare system and the patient. If the facility doesn’t document these injuries in the first 24 hours, Hospitals are legally liable from Medicare. Effective nursing management strategies for adults with severe traumatic brain injury (STBI) are still a remarkable issue and a difficult task for neurologists, neurosurgeons, and neuro nurses. 

A list of justified indications and scientific rationale for nursing management of these patients are continuously evolving. The objectives of the study are to analyse the pertinently available research and clinical studies that demonstrate the nursing management strategies for adults with STBI and to synthesize the available evidence based on the review in the included studies, data were extracted and evaluated according to the objective. Narrative analysis was adopted to write this review. Patients with STBI have poor prognosis and require quality care for maximizing patients' survival. With a thorough knowledge and discernment of care of such patients, nurses can improve these patients' neurological outcomes.