Impact of Poor Wound Treatment on Patients

Question:

Discuss about the Man that dies in hospital after Gold Coast nursing home staff fail to Properly treat wounds.

Nursing approaches in professional nursing are measures or precautions which professional nurses are needed to employ in treating patients in their areas of working. In this case new approaches needs to be employed in treating wound patients. As we all know, wounds are painful and needs to be well treated or else they can cause damage to the patient’s affected part of the body. Failure of good treatment, wounds can cause death. Wounds can affect any part of the body, for example; legs, hands, stomach and even the head. When a wound affects any part of the body, it affects the normal functioning of the whole body, since all parts of the body are essential and they work hand in hand for a normal body functioning. Professional nurses therefore need to come up with new approaches of treating wound patients in their areas of working since wound are dangerous and if not well treated, they can cause a lot of damage to the patient’s body cells and can lead to death to the affected patient.

The elderly man who died in the gold coast hospital due to wounds was as a result failure of the available nurses to employ good treatment measures in treating his wounds. Due to poor treatment the wound spread to other parts of the body hence damaging more cells. The elderly man then succumbed the wounds hence his death. If the nurses who were available would have treated the wounds well, the man would have healed and continue with his normal life.

As a professional nurse, the death of the elderly man at the gold coast hospital as a result of wounds made me feel very bad and so much annoyed. It made me psychologically experience the pain that elderly man experienced hence his death. I was annoyed by the nurses who were taking care of the elderly man, since they failed to employ professional nursing approaches, in order to save the life of the elderly man. As professional nurses, they should have ensured that the wounds were cleaned and dressed frequently. They should also have ensured that the elderly man gets the required drugs which would have healed his wounds hence saving his life.

The death of the elderly man as a result of wounds affected me both positively and negatively. It   inspired me in doing more research on wound treatment. this also inspired me to study hard so that I can save the lives of wound patient in future as a professional nurse. This also made me eager to search for professional nurses to guide me on how to deal with cases of wounds in my future carrier as a professional nurse. This also inspired me to prefer community nursing in my future carrier, since unity in strength hence if the nurses in the gold coast hospital were united, they would have treated the wounds well hence their healing and saved the elderly man from dying. On the negative part of it, I thought of a would patient dying under my care. How would have the family members of the patient taken me and how would I have explained about the death of the elderly man to them. If I was at the care of the elderly man, would I had have managed to treat me wounds well hence their healing.

Nurse’s Response to the Elderly Man’s Death

In order to enhance my learning in professional nursing, I will research more about wound treatment in order to come up with new measures to treat wound patients. I will gather information from different wound patients which I will use to understand more about the cause of wounds so that I can educate my patients on measures to prevent occurrence of both internal and external wound in their bodies in future. I will also approach professional doctors who can feed me up with more information on how to treat both internal and external wounds. By gathering all these information, I will be in a chance to treat a wound patient hence successfully healing. if I case of an elderly man dying of wounds happens again. I will do a research to know the cause of the death first. Secondly, I will use the gathered information to improve the wound patient care in the hospital, which would have been employed to save the life of the wound patient.

Nurses can improve wound patient care by employing new approaches on wound treatment to their patients. There are new approaches which are being employed to save the lives of wound patients. These include; thermographic imaging, data trending and other approaches which wound treatment experts are employing in order to treat wound patients. Thermographic imaging is a technic used in detecting the tissues which are affected and which a doctor or a nurse cannot see with a naked eye in wounds (Schultz et al, 2013). This technic has helped much in treating wound patients and should therefore be employed in wound treatment since even the most inner affected tissues can be seen and well treated. Thermographic imaging also enables professional nurses to know the kind of treatment which a wound patient needs since through it, they are able to see all the affected tissues of the body (Millard et al, 2012). The professional nurses are therefore able to treat wound patients well hence their healing since it is easy for them to monitor the process of healing of a wound in a wound patient using thermographic imaging.

Data trending is a case were data on wound treatment is electronically kept to enable professional nurses understand the progress of wound treatment on a wound patient. Data trending has much improved care on wound patients, since in a hospital a patient is attended by different patients. Different professional nurses are able to provide valuable services to a wound patient (Masters, 2015). where data trending is employed since there is enough information about the progress of wound treatment progress, hence different nurses can proceed with the wound treatment from where the other patient reached. Data trending enables progressive and orderly manner of treatment of a wound in a wound patient. Data trending also enables professional nurses to be able to note any change in the wounds extend and if the wound is healing or not. Data trending also enables professional nurses to be able to understand whether the past medication on a wound patient worked well, and if not to be able to give a different medication which would rather heal the wound.

Improving Wound Treatment in Professional Nursing

The gib’s cycle enables nurses to critically think on how to tackle wound cases in their wound patients at nursing homes. Nurses need to get a description of what caused the wound in the patient’s body before commencing the treatment. The nurses who were taking care of the elderly man might not have taken the description of the cause of the wound hence wrong medications, which lead to spreading of the wound to other tissues hence his death. A good description can be given by the patient, family members, a relative or a guardian (Gottrup et al, 2010). Nurses should therefore consult their patients in order to get enough information about the cause of the wound. The amount of information delivered by the patient or the relative on the cause of the wound also depends on the way the nurse approaches the them. Communication ethics therefore (Fitzpatrick et al, 2008) matters a lot in this case. In order to gather more information on a patient, nurses should therefore employ good communication ethics.

As a professional nurse one has to develop a plan of the progress of treatment of a wound patient. The plan developed will determine the kind of treatment that the patient will get hence his or her healing (Fonder et al, 2008). the nurse who was taking care of the elderly man might not have planned well about his treatment progress hence the wounds did not heal. Planning for a patient’s treatment is very important since it tell you as a nurse the next step to take after a particular step of treatment. It is therefore important a professional nurse to plan about patient’s treatment.

It is important for a nurse to understand the feelings of their patient. As a professional nurse, one should monitor the feelings of his or her patient, since a patient’s feeling shows the progress of healing of a patient (Hooper-Kyriakidis et al,2011). Would the nurses at the nursing home noted the feelings of the elderly man early in advance, they would have known the progress of the wounds healing and if the feelings persisted they would have changed the medication and this would have enabled them in treating the wounds well hence their healing, and this would have saved his live. It is therefore important as professional nurses to monitor every feeling on our patient’s health and therefore be able to offer best treatment to our patients.

New Approaches Employed in Wound Treatment

Professional nurses should analyze the process of treatment of their patients. In order to come up with a good treatment process a nurse should analyze all the medications that their patient need from the first to the last step of their medication. Analyzing enables a nurse to avoid confusion on which treatment to give their patients (Chinn et al 2009). It also enables the nurses to offer the right medication to their patient since everything is in order hence no confusion in the patient’s treatment. Analyzing the process of treatment of a patient also ensures that a nurse observes time, since time factor is a key thing in every profession. This also ensures that the patient get the required treatment which is necessary for quick healing of a patient.

In order to give the required treatment to a patient, professional nurses should research more about their patients’ health and more treatment technics which should be employed in treating their patients (Benner, et al,2011). This can be done by engaging themselves in team work with other professional nurses in order to come up with new ideas on how to tackle their patients’ health problems. A professional nurse also seeks more information on how to tackle their patients’ health problems from the professional doctors since they have more knowledge which is helpful to them. In case of complication in the patient’s health, it is important to seek clarification on which medication is needed of overcome the complication from professional doctors.

It is important as a nurse to keep records of treatment of their patients ( Barnum, 2008) Records are kept as a reminder hence they show the past medication of a patient. Keeping your patients’ records ensures that past medication is not given to a patient again. This also ensures that the patient receives the medication they need for their healing.

In conclusion, it is important for professional nurses to come up with new treatment method for their patients in order to successfully treat their patients. Wounds are dangerous and if not treated well they can cause death. Professional nurses should gather enough information on their patients’ health before embarking on the treatment process of their patients. Team work is important in treating a patient considering is or her condition of health. It is important as professional nurses to do more research on our patients’ health in order to save their lives. Professional nursing approaches such as thermographic imaging are necessary in wound treatment.

References

Barnum, S. (2008). Nursing theory analysis, application, evaluation.

Benner, P. E., Hooper-Kyriakidis, P. L., & Stannard, D. (2011). Clinical wisdom and interventions in acute and critical care: A thinking-in-action approach. Springer Publishing Company.

Chinn, P. L., & Kramer, M. K. (2009). Theory and nursing a systematic approach.

Fitzpatrick, J. J., & Whall, A. L. (2008). Conceptual models of nursing analysis and application.

Fonder, M. A., Lazarus, G. S., Cowan, D. A., Aronson-Cook, B., Kohli, A. R., & Mamelak, A. J. (2008). Treating the chronic wound: a practical approach to the care of nonhealing wounds and wound care dressings. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 58(2), 185-206.

Gottrup, F., Holstein, P., Jørgensen, B., Lohmann, M., & Karlsmar, T. (2010). A new concept of a multidisciplinary wound healing center and a national expert function of wound healing. Archives of Surgery, 136(7), 765-772. 8).

Masters, K. (2015). Role development in professional nursing practice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Millard, L., Hallett, C., & Luker, K. (2012). Nurse–patient interaction and decision?making in care: patient involvement in community nursing. Journal of advanced nursing, 55(2), 142-150.

Schultz, G. S., Sibbald, R. G., Falanga, V., Ayello, E. A., Dowsett, C., Harding, K., … & Vanscheidt, W. (2013). Wound bed preparation: a systematic approach to wound management. Wound repair and regeneration, 11(s1).