An analysis of the phenomenon of deterioration in the critically ill

Nursing Surveillance for Deterioration in Pediatric Patients: An Integrative Review

PROBLEM

Adverse events occur in up to 19% of pediatric hospitalized patients, often associated with delays in recognition or treatment. While early detection is recognized as a primary determinant of recovery from deterioration, most research has focused on profiling patient risk and testing interventions, and less on factors that impact surveillance efficacy. This integrative review explored actions and factors that influence the quality of pediatric nursing surveillance.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Original research on nursing surveillance, escalation of care, or cardiopulmonary deterioration in hospitalized pediatric patients in non-critical environments, published in English in peer reviewed journals.

SAMPLE

Twenty-four studies from a literature search within the databases of CINAHL, PubMed, and Web of Science were evaluated and synthesized using a socio-technical systems theory framework. Study quality was assessed using The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool.

RESULTS

Assessment, documentation, decision-making, intervening and communicating were identified as activities associated with surveillance of deterioration. Factors that influenced nurses' detection of deterioration were patient acuity, nurse education, experience, expertise and confidence, staffing, standardized assessment and communication tools, availability of emergency services, team composition and opportunities for multidisciplinary care planning.

CONCLUSIONS

Research provides insight into some aspects of nursing surveillance but does not adequately explore factors that affect clinical data interpretation and synthesis, and role integration between nurse and parents, and nurse and other clinicians on surveillance of clinical stability.

IMPLICATIONS

Research is needed to enhance understanding of the contextual factors that impact nursing surveillance to inform intervention design to support nurses' timely recognition and mitigation of clinical deterioration.

Relationship between nursing documentation and patients' mortality

BACKGROUND

Nurses alter their monitoring behavior as a patient's clinical condition deteriorates, often detecting and documenting subtle changes before physiological trends are apparent. It was hypothesized that a nurse's behavior of recording optional documentation (beyond what is required) reflects concern about a patient's status and that mining data from patients' electronic health records for the presence of these features could help predict patients' mortality.

METHODS

Data-mining methods were used to analyze electronic nursing documentation from a 15-month period at a large, urban academic medical center. Mortality rates and the frequency of vital sign measurements (beyond required) and optional nursing comment documentation were analyzed for a random set of patients and patients who experienced a cardiac arrest during their hospitalization. Patients were stratified by age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity index.

RESULTS

A total of 15,000 acute care patients and 145 cardiac arrest patients were studied. Patients who died had a mean of 0.9 to 1.5 more optional comments and 6.1 to 10 more vital signs documented within 48 hours than did patients who survived. A higher frequency of comment and vital sign documentation was also associated with a higher likelihood of cardiac arrest. Of patients who had a cardiac arrest, those with more documented comments were more likely to die.

CONCLUSIONS

For the first time, nursing documentation patterns have been linked to patients' mortality. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that some features of nursing documentation within electronic health records can be used to predict mortality. With future work, these associations could be used in real time to establish a threshold of concern indicating a risk for deterioration in a patient's condition.

The cognitive processes underpinning clinical decision in triage assessment: a theoretical conundrum?

High quality clinical decision-making (CDM) has been highlighted as a priority across the nursing profession. Triage nurses, in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department, work in considerable levels of uncertainty and require essential skills including: critical thinking, evaluation and decision-making. The content of this paper aims to promote awareness of how triage nurses make judgements and decisions in emergency situations. By exploring relevant literature on clinical judgement and decision-making theory, this paper demonstrates the importance of high quality decision-making skills underpinning the triage nurse's role. Having an awareness of how judgements and decisions are made is argued as essential, in a time where traditional nurse boundaries and responsibilities are never more challenged. It is hoped that the paper not only raises this awareness in general but also, in particular, engages the triage nurse to look more critically at how they make their own decisions in their everyday practice.

Packaging: a grounded theory of how to report physiological deterioration effectively

AIM

The aim of this paper is to present a study of how ward-based staff use vital signs and the Early Warning Score to package physiological deterioration effectively to ensure successful referral to doctors.

BACKGROUND

The literature tends to emphasize the identification of premonitory signs in predicting physiological deterioration. However, these signs lack sensitivity and specificity, and there is evidence that nurses rely on subjective and subtle indicators. The Early Warning Score was developed for the early detection of deterioration and has been widely implemented, with various modifications.

METHOD

The data reported here form part of a larger study investigating the practical problems faced by general ward staff in detecting physiological deterioration. During 2002, interviews and observations were carried out using a grounded theory approach, and a total of 44 participants were interviewed (30 nurses, 7 doctors and 7 health care support workers).

FINDINGS

Participants reported that quantifiable evidence is the most effective means of referring patients to doctors, and the Early Warning Score achieves this by improving communication between professionals. Rather than reporting changes in individual vital signs, the Early Warning Score effectively packages them together, resulting in a much more convincing referral. It gives nurses a precise, concise and unambiguous means of communicating deterioration, and confidence in using medical language. Thus, nurses are empowered and doctors can focus quickly on identified problems.

CONCLUSION

The Early Warning Score leads to successful referral of patients by providing an agreed framework for assessment, increasing confidence in the use of medical language and empowering nurses. It is essential that nurses and nursing students are supported in its use and in developing confidence in using medical language by continued emphasis on physiology and pathophysiology in the nursing curriculum.

The identification of risk factors for cardiac arrest and formulation of activation criteria to alert a medical emergency team

AIM

(1) To identify risk factors for in-hospital cardiac arrest; (2) to formulate activation criteria to alert a clinical response culminating in attendance by a Medical Emergency Team (MET); (3) to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the scoring system.

METHODS

Quasi-experimental design to determine prevalence of risk factors for cardiac arrest in the hospitalised population. Weighting of risk factors and formulation of activation criteria to alert a graded clinical response. ROC analysis of weighted cumulative scores to determine their sensitivity and specificity.

SETTING

An acute 700 bed district general hospital with 32,348 adult admissions in 1999 and a catchment population of around 365,000.

SUBJECTS

118 consecutive adult patients suffering primary cardiac arrest in-hospital and 132 non-arrest patients, randomly selected according to stratified randomisation by gender and age.

RESULTS

Risk factors for cardiac arrest include: abnormal respiratory rate (P = 0.013), abnormal breathing indicator (abnormal rate or documented shortness of breath) (P < 0.001), abnormal pulse (P < 0.001), reduced systolic blood pressure (P < 0.001), abnormal temperature (P < 0.001), reduced pulse oximetry (P < 0.001), chest pain (P < 0.001) and nurse or doctor concern (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis of cardiac arrest cases identified three positive associations for cardiac arrest: abnormal breathing indicator (OR 3.49; 95% CI: 1.69-7.21), abnormal pulse (OR 4.07; 95% CI: 2.0-8.31) and abnormal systolic blood pressure (OR 19.92; 95% CI: 9.48-41.84). Risk factors were weighted and tabulated. The aggregate score determines the grade of clinical response. ROC analysis determined that a score of 4 has 89% sensitivity and 77% specificity for cardiac arrest; a score of 8 has 52% sensitivity and 99% specificity. All patients scoring greater than 10 suffered cardiac arrest.

CONCLUSION

Risk factors for cardiac arrest have been identified, quantified and formulated into a table of activation criteria to help predict and avert cardiac arrest by alerting a clinical response. A graded clinical response has resulted in a tool that has both sensitivity and specificity for cardiac arrest.

Recognition of patients who require emergency assistance: a descriptive study

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the patient characteristics and the process of recognition nurses use to recognize patients about whom they are seriously worried.

DESIGN

The study design was qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive, and it used in-depth interviews and a purposive sample.

SETTING

The study setting included a teaching hospital and a peripheral hospital in a Sydney area health service.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants included registered nurses (N = 32) with 5 or more years of experience and a history of calling the medical emergency team (MET). Mean years of experience as a registered nurse was 14 years, and the mean calls to the MET since employed in current hospital was 16 calls.

FINDINGS

Primary findings showed that nurses relied on 4 patient characteristics to apply the MET criterion, "seriously worried about a patient." These 4 characteristics were (1) feeling "not right," (2) color, (3) agitation, and (4) observations marginally changed or not changed at all. The process used to gather and interpret information to recognize these patients who were deteriorating involved touching, observing, listening, feeling or sensing, and "knowing." In this process of recognition, nurses relied heavily on past experiences and knowledge to detect differences in patient condition.

CONCLUSIONS

The 4 characteristics need to be included as an explanation for the MET criterion, "seriously worried about a patient." Additional validation and refinement of the 4 characteristics of the nonspecific MET criterion, "seriously worried about a patient," should be carried out. Continuing education programs in health care facilities need to support the use of subjective information in complex situations that result in decisions to call emergency assistance so patients whose conditions are deteriorating can be identified early and responded to rapidly.

Advancing nursing practice with a unit-based clinical expert

OBJECTIVE

To explore patterns in the practice of nursing and patient outcomes.

DESIGN

Qualitative field research.

POPULATION, SAMPLE, SETTING

Populations were critical care nurses and critically ill adult patients in the 10-bed medical critical care unit of a 900-bed teaching hospital. A convenience-purposive sample of 27 nurses and 31 patients was studied in 1985.

METHODS

Six months of participant observation, unstructured interviews, and the constant comparison method of grounded theory.

FINDINGS

Markedly different patterns were found in expert and nonexpert practice. The substantive theory of conversion helped explain how the majority of nonexpert nurses advanced their practice. The metaphor of catalyzed conversion captures how a unit-based expert nurse serves as a catalyst to advance the practice of nonexperts. Presence, defined as the way of being within a given clinical context, differentiated nurses.

CONCLUSIONS

(a) Expert and nonexpert practices are substantively different. (b) Expert and nonexpert practice results in different patient outcomes. (c) Conversion helps explain changes in nonexpert practice.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

A unit-based expert nurse can increase patient-focused care.