Doctor's Orders (doctor + order)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Just What the Doctor Ordered: The Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act, the Supreme Court, and the Federal Regulation of Medical Practice, 1915,1919

JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY, Issue 3 2001
Kurt Hohenstein
[source]


An Internet-Based Survey of Icelandic Nurses on Their Use of and Attitudes Toward NANDA, NIC, and NOC

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING TERMINOLOGIES AND CLASSIFICATION, Issue 2003
Gyda Bjornsdottir
PURPOSE To gain understanding of how Icelandic nurses can be supported during a mandated change to the use of NANDA and NIC in clinical documentation practices. METHODS All members of the Icelandic Nurses Association of working age were invited to participate in an Internet-based survey. Each nurse was assigned a unique password mailed to his/her home along with information on how to access the survey Web site. Each nurse could submit answers only once. On submission, data were automatically coded and saved in a database under encrypted numerical identifiers. FINDINGS A total of 463 nurses (18% response rate) participated by submitting answers. The sample was representative of the population in terms of demographic characteristics. Information resources most valued when planning nursing care included text-based progress notes (77%), nursing care plans (52%), doctor's orders (49%), verbal information (48%), and documented nursing diagnoses (37%). Of the participants, 58% said NANDA was used in their workplace; 28% said no standardized nursing documentation was used; 19% reported using NIC always or sometimes when documenting nursing interventions; and 20% never used NIC. NOC use was reported only by researchers. Of the sample, 86% reported that it is important or necessary for nurses to standardize documentation practices; 30% found NANDA useful in education; 56% found it useful for clinical work; 17% for research; and 7% found it not useful at all. Nine percent believed that NANDA diagnoses were not descriptive enough of patients' problems, and 23% found their wording problematic. No statistically significant differences were found between reported use of or attitudes toward NANDA and NIC when comparing nurses who use electronic patient record systems that support NANDA and NIC documentation and those who use paper documentation only. DISCUSSION The sample may have been somewhat biased toward computer use and classification system use for standardized and computerized documentation. However, results indicate that although Icelandic nurses give free-text progress notes and verbal information a higher priority than nursing diagnoses as an information resource for care planning, they have a positive attitude toward NANDA. NANDA and NIC are still used inconsistently in clinical practice, and 28% of participants claimed not to use any form of standardized documentation. CONCLUSIONS In an effort to standardize clinical documentation among nurses, Icelandic health authorities must follow their documentation mandates with educational and technologic support to facilitate the use of NANDA, NIC, and (after its translation) NOC in nursing documentation practices. Electronic patient record system developers must find ways to further facilitate standardized nursing documentation because currently there seems to be no difference between users and nonusers in terms of how they use NANDA and NIC in their documentation practices. [source]


Educational strategy to reduce medication errors in a neonatal intensive care unit

ACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 5 2009
Ainara Campino
Abstract Objective: We aimed to evaluate the effect of a comprehensive preventive educational strategy on the number and type of drug errors in the prescription process in a regional neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Design: Medication errors during prescription were recorded in a 41 bed, level III regional neonatal unit by a pharmacist. Data were retrieved from handwritten doctor's orders and introduced at bedsite into an e-database. Each prescription, not related to enteral and parenteral nutrition and blood products, was evaluated for dosage, units, route and dosing interval. The study was developed in three phases: pilot phase to know the baseline drug error rate and estimate sample size; pre-intervention (4182 drug orders reviewed); and post-intervention seven months after a comprehensive preventive educational intervention consisting sessions about drug errors and study's aims was implemented. Results: After the preventive educational intervention was implemented, the prescription error rate and the percentage of registers with one or more incident decreased significantly from 20.7 to 3% (p < 0.001) and from 19.2 to 2.9% (p < 0.001), respectively. Simultaneously, an improvement in correct identification of the prescribing physician was registered (from 1.3 to 78.2%). The rest of items analysed were similar in both periods. Conclusion: The implementation of a structured preventive educational intervention for health professionals in a regional NICU reduced the medication error rate, possibly by the dissemination of a patient safety culture. [source]


Nursing needs of acutely ill older people

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 5 2003
Karen Hancock BSc PhD
Background., Investigating older acutely ill hospitalized patients' nursing needs and quality of care is paramount, given the growing pressure on nurses to provide increasingly intensive levels of care to a growing older population while at the same time working with reduced staffing levels. Aims., The aims of this study were to determine: (1) important aspects of nursing care as perceived by older patients, their family member/carer who observed care during hospitalization, and nurses; (2) satisfaction levels of patients, family/carers and nurses on nursing care received; and (3) mismatches between nursing care priorities and satisfaction with nursing care. Methods., Two hundred and thirty-two acutely ill patients aged over 65 years, 99 carers/family members and 90 nurses completed the Caregiving Activities Survey, which measures importance of and satisfaction with various aspects of nursing care. Qualitative data, which qualified responses to survey items, were also obtained from participants. Results., Patients, carers and nurses perceived that carrying out doctors' orders was the most important aspect of nursing care, followed by physical care, psychosocial care and discharge planning. Nurses and carers rated physical care, psychosocial care and discharge planning more highly than patients. Physical care was rated highly by patients in terms of importance, but rated moderately in terms of satisfaction. Carers' and patients' ratings of satisfaction with physical care were lower than nurses' ratings of opportunities to provide it. The importance of discharge planning was rated highly by nurses but all groups were only moderately satisfied with this aspect of care. Study limitations., The findings do not apply to acutely ill older patients with confusion, mental illness or more than early stage dementia. Conclusions., Patients, nurses and family/carers were generally in agreement about the relative importance of particular aspects of nursing care. Nurses may need to communicate more effectively with older patients and their family carers about the particular roles they will play during the patient's hospital episode, the expectations they have of patients in the process of healing and recovery, and the reasons for the actions they take in aiding this process. The findings are useful in making nurses more aware of the expectations and needs of older hospital patients and their carers. They provide evidence for developing both new models of nursing care for this patient group, and nursing education programmes. [source]