Clinicals Week 7

The week of October 26th, I spent a total of 4.5 hours with my preceptor. One day we discussed my change project (a quick reference for the nurses to use for a complicated test that they do on this floor). O.C. told me about the feedback that he had gotten so far. It sounded like the nurses liked it. I plan to give them a survey after it has been in use a little bit longer.
We also attended a Quality Improvement Council meeting. This council regulates quality for the whole hospital. They also track quality indicators. At this meeting there were also two pesentations regarding research at Cook Children's. One of the presentations was a research project that a nurse had thought of for her master's program and then actually implemeted it at work. She implemented a line insertion team in the NICU. This team now inserts over 90% of all PICC lines in the NICU. This team also rounds on each of these lines daily and teaches staff about caring for the lines. In the first year, they have decreased infections from central lines by over 80%. She showed a dramatic improvement with graphs. She stated that the hardest part to implementing this project was getting physicians and administration to buy into it. I can believe that! But, it was amazing data nonetheless. I was astounded at the results!  I would assume that this would produce some hospital wide changes and maybe even further reaching than that. She is presenting at quite a few conferences.