There is little research from the critical care setting to show that improving the work environment provides another strategy to reduce occurrences of health care–associated infections (HAIs). Kelly and colleagues investigated the association between the critical care work environment and nurse-reported patient outcomes (frequency of HAIs). They surveyed more than 3200 adult critical care nurses from 320 hospitals in 4 states over a 3-year period and found the following:
The authors suggest using the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) as a guide to improve work environments.
—Karen A. McQuillan,rn, ms, cns-bc, ccrn, cnrn
See Article, pp 482–489
Identification of patients at risk for pressure ulcers is a high priority. Most nurses are very familiar with the Braden scale as the most widely used tool. But is it a good predictor of risk in the intensive care unit (ICU) patient? Hyun and collegues evaluated data from...
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