Share why you care about this nursing practice problem and why you believe the problem would benefit from finding the best evidence.

Share why you care about this nursing practice problem and why you believe the problem would benefit from finding the best evidence.

I care about this nursing practice problem because a lot of the times I receive a patient from a prior nurse who is post op and has orders for nursing communication to instruct the patient to use the incentive Spirometer as indicated 10x/hr, and there isn’t even an incentive spirometer in the room, or if there is, its just decoration and the patient doesn’t even know how to use it. It is very frustrating. In my experience, it is much easier to get a patient to do something beneficial for themselves when it is easy. A patient can do the Incentive Spirometer when laying in bed watching TV, if they are stable enough to do so, but overall, they can do it without having to get out of bed. Many times, I struggle motivating my patients to get out of bed when they are post op because of the pain and exhaustion, and it almost starts to feel forceful, and I hate that feeling although it is beneficial for the patient. It is rewarding later on if they are discharged home without complications. Overall, I personally, would like to dive deeper and explore the research behind these nursing interventions in preventing infection in post op patients. It would be nice to conclude that the Incentive Spirometer is just as effective, if not more effective than early ambulation in the post op patient.

We know early ambulation post operatively is beneficial in numerous ways, but what about the Incentive Spirometer? We have highlighted their use during this Pandemic now more than ever, and as I have used them for COVID-19 patients, I want to start encouraging their use more in other clinical areas such as the post op patient. If patients acquire a post op infection, that affects Hospital Acquired Infection (HAI) numbers which effects quality improvement and financial resources and reimbursements for the hospital, including lengthening the patient’s stay in the hospital, which not a goal. Many hospitals, including mine, aim to decrease the length of patient stay. So not only the patient would benefit, but the hospital and patient satisfaction rates would improve as well if nursing interventions such as the Incentive Spirometer were used to prevent post op infections. According to this week’s lesson, “We use the research process to help discover and solve nursing practice problems” (Houser, 2018), and I believe that the problem of post op infections will benefit from nursing research and help nurses find the best evidence to incorporate the best practice for our patients.

References-

Current hai progress report. (2020, December 02). Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/hai/data/portal/progress-report.htmlLinks to an external site.