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AACN Essentials of Critical Care Nursing

2014; American Association of Critical-Care Nurses; Volume: 34; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4037/ccn2014515

1940-8250

Paula Lusardi,

Hemodynamic Monitoring and Therapy

The fully updated, expanded, and evidence-based Essentials of Critical Care Nursing, comprehensively presents all the “must-know” details about the care of adult critically ill patients and their families. The content includes essential information for both new and more advanced clinicians and nurses preparing for CCRN certification and, most importantly, knowledge to create a safe passage for patients and families in critical care situations. Unlike other critical care reference books, this text uses the clinician’s significant medical-surgical knowledge base to build a clinically friendly approach, moving from basic to more complex concepts while incorporating case studies and clinically relevant tables and algorithms. Written by experts in their respective fields and based on the most current evidence and practice guidelines, this book is an indispensable reference for all critical care clinicians.Essentials of Critical Care Nursing is divided into 4 sections. Section I, the Essentials, discusses foundational concepts of assessment, diagnosis, planning, and interventions, including key approaches to the interpretation and management of cardiac rhythms, hemodynamic monitoring, and airway and ventilator management. Other topics are pain, sedation, neuromuscular management, pharmacology, and ethical and legal considerations. Section II, Pathological Conditions, overviews management strategies for a variety of common pathological conditions encountered in medical and surgical critical care units. Chapters are organized around body systems, trauma and multisystem problems, and carefully crafted case studies. These cases include brief pathophysiological descriptions, etiologies, signs and symptoms, diagnostic testing, and complications that assist the clinician in understanding the multidisciplinary management of key patient problems and needs.Section III, Advanced Concepts in Caring for the Critically Ill Patient, presents advanced perspectives on pathological conditions that are less common or more specialized than expected in medical-surgical patients. This section mirrors the format of section II.Finally, section IV includes reference information needed by the clinician at the bedside. This material is presented in quick reference formats, such as normal laboratory and diagnostic values, algorithms for advanced cardiac life support, trouble shooting guides for hemodynamic monitoring, as well as summary tables of critical care drugs and cardiac rhythms.Importantly, the chapter format of this book guides clinicians through a friendly yet rigorous learning process foundational to critical thinking and patient management strategies. Each chapter presents knowledge competencies that lay the base to gauge one’s learning progress. In addition, each chapter illustrates a case study that describes a common clinical problem, laying the base for comprehensive learning about patient problems. At the end of each chapter, “critical thinking” case studies challenge the clinician to apply chapter information to realistic clinical scenarios.In conclusion and as Dr Burns states in the preface: “We believe that there is no greater way to protect our patient than to ensure that an educated clinician cares for them. Safe passage in critical care is ensured by competent, skilled, knowledgeable, and caring clinicians. We sincerely believe that this textbook will help you make it so!” I enthusiastically agree. All critical care clinicians, new and seasoned, will revel in the information presented in this reference, as I have since the seminal predecessor edition was published many years ago.