Patient Centered care dealing with the mechanically ventilated patient in the ICU setting(Intubation/Extubation, the process of - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... These standards reflect the professional activities and behavior that are expected within the scope of the nursing profession. However, professionally trained nurses should understand and integrate the acquired knowledge, training and education with the application in practice so as to improve health outcomes. In real life clinical experience, nursing is a day to day practice that involves the use of critical thinking, decision making and diagnostic skills. Nurses are also involved in other processes which include advanced assessment, differential diagnosis, outcome identification, plan of care development, implementation of treatment, evaluation of outcome, as well as, human relations. Each of these steps depends on the accuracy of the preceding step. A nurse has the responsibility of assessing patients and their families, their response to interventions according to the plan of care, critically review of outcome information as well as re-formulating the diagnosis. A nurse should possess Human Relation skills such as communication, teamwork with fellow nurses, doctors, patients, and families. These skills are very important in the achievement of the desires outcome (Bell, 2012). In performance of their roles, nurses deal with variety of patients from those with mild infections to those who are critically ill. Some of the critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit require intubation. This is one of the major role that can be delegated to the nurses. According to Adam and Osborne (2005), the nurse carries out the safety priorities such as: checking that the ventilation bag and suction equipment are functioning, attaching the ventilator to the gas source and ensuring that it is functioning, ensuring that emergency drugs are close such that the patient has access to them, and going through the checklist and ensuring that everything is safe and in place. Such critical conditions require specific nursing care since they can be risky. These risks could include: inability to intubate, aspiration of gastric contents, bleeding from trauma to the airway, endobronchial intubation especially in the right main bronchus, oesophageal intubation, vocal cord damage, perforation in rare cases, hypotension, arrhythmias and even dislodged teeth (Adam & Osborne, 2005). Statistics show that between 1 to 19 per cent of patients in ICU undergo unplanned extubation. Often, this has been associated with restlessness and agitation, confusion, previous accidental extubation episode, current history of smoking, medical “Intensive Care Unit”, use of physical restraint, decreased level of consciousness and oral endotracheal tube (Adam & Osborne, 2005). However, intubation also has advantages to the patient. First, it minimizes complications such as nasal trauma and nose bleeding that are attributed to the nasal route. In addition to that, for patients with major facial, head, or spinal ...Download file to see next pagesRead More