Teaching Nursing Students about Skin Cancer Using a Skin Analyzer Machine.

Nurses are in an excellent position to perform skin assessments and teach the public about skin cancer prevention. Knowledgeable nurses can help reduce the incidence of skin cancer. Determining the best method to teach nursing students about skin cancer is thus important.

Resource Deployment in Response to Trauma Patients.

Background Variance in the deployment of the trauma team to the emergency department (ED) can result in patient treatment delays and excess burden on ED personnel. Characteristics of trauma patients, including mechanism of injury, injury type, and age, have been associated with differences in trauma resource deployment. Therefore, this retrospective, single-site study aimed to examine the deployment patterns of trauma resources, the characteristics of the trauma patients associated with levels of trauma resource deployment, and the deployment impact on ED workforce utilization and non-trauma ED patients. Methodology This was an investigator-initiated, single-institution, retrospective cohort study of all patients designated as a trauma response and admitted to a community hospital's ED from July 01, 2019, through July 01, 2022. Results Resource deployment for trauma patients varied by mechanism of injury (p < 0.001), injury type (p < 0.001), and patient age groups (p < 0.001). Specifically, there was a lower average trauma activation for geriatric trauma patients with a fall as a mechanism of injury compared to all younger patient groups with any mechanism of injury (F(5) = 234.49, p < 0.001). In the subsample, there was an average of 3.35 ED registered nurses (RNs) allocated to each trauma patient. Additionally, the ED RNs were temporarily reallocated from an average of 4.09 non-trauma patients to respond to trauma patients, despite over a third of the trauma patients in the subsample being the trauma patients being discharged home from the ED. Conclusions Trauma activation responses need to be standardized with a specific plan for geriatric fall patients to ensure efficient use of trauma and ED personnel resources.

On-Campus Clinical: Preparing Prelicensure Nursing Students for a Safe Clinical Practice.

BACKGROUND: Ensuring students are both confident and competent for clinical practice will lead to improved patient outcomes. Early exposure to delivering safe and effective care using knowledge, skills, and abilities that are consonant with professional practice is essential. PROBLEM: Caring for an increasingly complex patient population is challenging. Entry-to-practice competencies must begin early in the student's education and be developed throughout. APPROACH: This educational initiative outlines an innovative and a collaborative evidence-based learning experience that prepares prelicensure nursing students to deliver safe and effective patient-centered care during their first clinical practice. Lecture and laboratory topics, clinical skills stations, and simulation scenarios were developed to promote critical thinking and clinical judgment in a complex health care environment. OUTCOMES: More than 2300 first-year clinical students, instructors, and staff participated in this rigorous course-wide experience. CONCLUSION: This 1-day immersion cultivates safe practice and may be incorporated throughout the curriculum as students encounter increasingly challenging clinical practice experiences.