Rationale for this task
Recognition and management of the deteriorating patient is a key strategic priority. It is one of the top national priority areas of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, and has been endorsed by the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council and the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference.
Hospital staff are increasingly confronted with the challenge of providing acute care to an ageing population with multiple co‐morbidities, who undergo complex medical and surgical interventions. Due to the higher acuity of these patients, they are at risk of deterioration, which may lead to cardiac arrest and death.
Case scenario
Casey Skinner is 20 years old. She is a part time worker at Fun2Learn, a child care centre with an enrolment of 37 children, located at Farmerdale in the New England district. Casey’s most recent shift at Fun2Learn was 2 days ago. This morning she woke up feeling nauseated. She tried eating a little breakfast but almost immediately vomited. During the day Casey has grown increasingly unwell, and has vomited repeatedly. It is late afternoon. Casey’s house mate Leah has returned home from work, and, finding Casey extremely ill, has brought her to the local hospital Emergency Department.
Admission documentation for Casey can be viewed in Moodle.
You are a student nurse on duty on the ward. You commenced your shift at 7:00 am and handover is complete. It has been noted on Casey’s observation chart there are some changes from previous assessment, see chart attached (the chart is in another file).
Task
Your task is to write a 1500 word essay addressing the following questions related to the above admission and current assessment. You must support your discussion using high quality academic resources such as texts and peer reviewed journals.
1. Identify and discuss factors that contribute towards a failure to identify and manage the deteriorating patient.
2. Define Clinical Reasoning and explain how is it relevant to nursing practice when assessing deteriorating patients such as Casey.
3. In this case scenario, what are the critical responses that should be initiated? How can these responses be evaluated?
Structure and presentation
This assignment is a piece of academic writing and needs to be structured as such, with an introduction and conclusion. You may use sub-headings as needed. Use the marking criteria to guide you with respect to aspects of presentation and formatting of this assignment.
Referencing
APA is the required referencing system for assignments in the School of Health. Follow the link at the top right of the page for information and examples.
A minimum of 5 quality journal references in addition to your prescribed texts is expected.
Your essay should include:
• Introduction – Introduce the processes you have identified and provide some contextual information so the reader knows which processes and what type of clinical setting ie public/private hospital, nursing home and don’t forget to identify the purpose of your paper in the introduction (approximately 150-200 words).
• Content – define, discuss and analyse (argue [positives and negatives or practised and not practised] about the deteriorating patient – this MUST be supported with current literature) (approximately 1000 words)
• Conclusion – outcome of the analysis – what are the key points you discussed in the content/argument section of the essay? (approximately 200 words)
• An appendix may be used as further support of content of the paper (in-text clarity, relevance and reference to the appendix is important. The Academic Skills Office can support you in how to submit this correctly).
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Writing tips
• As this is NOT a personal reflective paper – do NOT use I, my, us, we, you in your writing.
Examples for Intro
DO NOT WRITE: In this paper I will talk about……Infection control is… I will present….
DO WRITE– This paper will present….. This paper will define and discuss…… The purpose of this paper is to….
DO NOT WRITE: – In practice you need to ensure you wash your hands between patients
INSTEAD WRITE – In practice health care workers must ensure hand hygiene is performed when transferring care between patients.
• Write words in full, not abbreviations: For example, don’t should be do not, can’t should be cannot
• DO NOT WRITE: “etc” – discuss the point in full.
• If you write ‘Some studies have found…’ – you need to reference this and identify the study or studies.
