NR_447 Week 5 Discussion Question, Patient Outcomes (Two Responses)

Week 5 Discussion – Patient Outcomes Patient outcomes are a result of an action or actions. As a nurse, we are to educate and guide our patients to favorable outcomes. I have chosen the area of total knee replacement as I have been through this twice in the past 6 months with my mother-in-love (MIL). It is imperative as a professional nurse that we provide education of the procedure and what to expect prior to their hospital admission. Having a pre-operative education department is one of the areas that I would address. This area should be responsible for professional education on the patients learning level. It has been proven that all educational materials should be on no greater than a 6th grade reading level. Just handing them literature doesn’t always ensure that they can read and understand it. Make sure you have done an assessment that covers their reading and comprehension. My MIL had a fantastic pre-op teaching session that really broke everything down on her level. Guiding them through the things they can do weeks pre-operatively can make their surgery and recovery a success. This made her feel empowered over her outcome. As Yoe, Funk and Ciminero (2018) pointed out in their article, Octogenarians are at higher risks for re-admission and complications d/t their co-morbidities. Having a pre-op visit helps to reduce the complications as the surgical team can evaluate the co-morbidities and develop a customized plan for each patient. For my MIL, two major factors were COPD and NIDDM. Education was provided on exercises to increase her lung capacity and to reduce her blood glucose levels in the 2 weeks prior to surgery. Postoperatively, we need to be teaching the signs and symptoms of infection, how to care for their wound, staying ahead of their pain and provide written instructions for exercises and follow-up. As a professional nurse, a couple of areas that I try to assist all of my patients with is obtaining a follow up appointment with their MD prior to leaving the hospital and ensuring that they have home nursing and physical therapy set up prior to leaving the hospital. I provide them with the contact phone number for the agencies that I have scheduled to see them. For those that are low-income, I offer them assistance through the local area agency on aging. They are a valuable resource for these members. Having just gone through this recently, these were the areas that I identified as needs and by providing the above education and extra TLC, we were able to remain out of the statistical number for re-admission. Nicholas Yohe MD, August Funk MD, Matthew Ciminero MD, Orry Erez MD, & Ahmed Saleh MD. (2018). Complications and Readmissions After Total Knee Replacement in Octogenarians and Nonagenarians. Geriatric Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation.