Storytelling in midwifery: 'Not just for entertainment'.

Background: The practice of sharing work-related stories has been shown to positively influence the learning experiences of student midwives. Less is known about the use of storytelling in general midwifery practice.

Aim: To explore the practice of sharing stories in midwifery, with a focus on story type, content and the reasons why stories are told.

Working with carer grief in community palliative care nursing.

Background: Community nurses (CN), both generalist and palliative care-specific, are key to supporting the carer with their experience of grief.

Aim: To identify the grief-related needs of carers and the capacity of CNs to provide for those needs.

Methods: A convergent parallel mixed-methods study which employed i) a needs questionnaire among carers of palliative care patients who had recently died; ii) a qualitative interview study among carers and iii) a questionnaire among CNs which canvassed their confidence and skills in working with carer grief.

Considerations across multiple stakeholder groups when implementing fall prevention programs in the acute hospital setting: a qualitative study.

Background: Falls in hospital remain a common and costly patient safety issue internationally. There is evidence that falls in hospitals can be prevented by multifactorial programs and by education for patients and staff, but these are often not routinely or effectively implemented in practice. Perspectives of multiple key stakeholder groups could inform implementation of fall prevention strategies.

Syncope vs. Seizure: Ictal Bradycardia and Ictal Asystole.

Background: Ictal arrhythmia is a rare condition that causes arrhythmic manifestations induced by epileptic seizures, including asystole or bradycardia. Ictal asystole (IA) is a very rare condition found in patients undergoing video-encephalography (EEG) monitoring. It is often related to temporal lobe epilepsy and can cause syncope, which can lead to injury or even death.

How the expert nursing role was used to facilitate the co-design of a patient interview study.

Background: Co-design is a research method that seeks to engage service users in research. The approach fosters inclusivity and shared power by having researchers and research participants work together for some or all of a study.

Aim: To describe the experience of co-designing a patient interview study from the perspective of an expert stoma nurse, using a case-study approach and reflexive methods.

Adopting an American framework to optimize nursing admission documentation in an Australian health organization.

Objective: Apply and modify the American Essential Clinical Dataset (ECD) approach to optimize the data elements of an electronic nursing admission assessment form in a metropolitan Australian local health district.

Materials And Methods: We used the American ECD approach but made modifications. Our approach included (1) a review of data, (2) a review of current admission practice via consultations with nurses, (3) a review of evidence and policies, (4) workshops with nursing and informatics teams in partnership with the electronic medical record (eMR) vendor, and (5) team debrief sessions to consolidate findings and decide what data elements should be kept, moved, or removed from the admission form.

Adjustment to an Ostomy: An Integrative Literature Review.

This integrative literature review summarizes recent literature relating to patient adjustment to stoma. The search strategy included 5 databases (CINAHL Plus, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, and MEDLINE); 65 articles meeting criteria were retrieved. Eleven were removed as duplicates, and a further 29 were removed when read in full, yielding 25 elements.

A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial: Alternative Approach to EEG Application to Reduce Electrode-induced Skin Injury among Ambulatory EEG Patients.

Ambulatory electroencephalography (AEEG) is a technique of continuous EEG recording of patients in their natural setting, outside the controlled environment of the hospital. Electrode-induced skin injury is a common complication of prolonged EEG monitoring. This randomized study aimed to investigate the performance of two methods of electrode application in reducing electrode-induced skin injury among patients undergoing 4-day AEEG monitoring.

Implementation of a New Clinical Testing Tool to Assess Patients During Ictal and Postictal Periods.

BACKGROUND: A seizure is a sudden, uncontrolled electrical disturbance of the cortical neurons in the brain, which can cause changes in behavior, movements, feelings, and consciousness. Clinical signs and symptoms before, during, and after a seizure can help to determine the seizure onset. The use of standardized clinical testing tools has been reported as being valuable, although also challenging, by some institutions.

Completion of electronic nursing documentation of inpatient admission assessment: Insights from Australian metropolitan hospitals.

Introduction: Electronic nursing documentation is an essential aspect of inpatient care and multidisciplinary communication. Analysing data in electronic medical record (eMR) systems can assist in understanding clinical workflows, improving care quality, and promoting efficiency in the healthcare system. This study aims to assess timeliness of completion of an electronic nursing admission assessment form and identify patient and facility factors associated with form completion in three metropolitan hospitals.

Using a clinical judgement model to understand the impact of validated pain assessment tools for burn clinicians and adult patients in the ICU: A multi-methods study.

Background: Intensive care (ICU) patients' burn pain is difficult to assess, communicate and address, risking chronic pain syndromes and psychological morbidity.

Aims: To understand how the introduction of validated pain tools (Critical Care Pain Observation Tool [CPOT], Numerical Rating Scale [NRS], Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia [PAINAD]) affected clinical judgement processes, analgesia/sedation administration and the experience of burn-injured patients.

Methods: Consecutive chart review compared type and amount of analgesia/sedation administered, ventilation time and length of ICU/hospital stay between consecutive burn patients pre- and 6-months post-intervention (n=70).

Medication safety improvements during care transitions in an Australian intensive care unit following implementation of an electronic medication management system.

Background: For patients requiring admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), transfers of care (TOC) during admission to and discharge from the ICU are particularly high-risk periods for medication errors. In the Australian setting, commonly general wards and the ICU do not share an integrated Electronic Medical ecord (EMR) and specifically an Electronic Medication Management System (EMMS) as part of the EMR.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of a hospital wide integrated EMMS on medication error rates during ICU admission and at TOC.

Reducing EEG (Electroencephalogram) Electrode-induced Skin Injury among Ambulatory EEG Monitored Patients: A Non-randomized Interventional Study of Two Commonly Used Cream-based Products for Electrode Application.

Ambulatory electroencephalography (AEEG) seeks to capture inter-ictal epileptiform activity or paroxysmal events when patients are not in the clinic. Skin inflammation is a common complication of prolonged EEG monitoring. This non-randomized study aimed to investigate the performance of two commonly used cream-based methods of electrode application in reducing electrode-induced skin injury among patients undergoing AEEG monitoring.

Engaging consumers in health research: a narrative review.

Objective Consumer and community engagement (CCE) in research is increasingly valued in a contemporary healthcare environment that seeks to genuinely partner with consumers and the wider community. Although there is widespread agreement at research governance levels as to the benefits of CCE in research, there is little available research-based guidance as to how best to proceed with CCE organisationally and how to manage and overcome barriers. The aim of this narrative review was to draw together the available research, review findings and relevant governance-related material and to discuss these in light of a case series among research-engaged consumers in order to chart a practical way forward.

Early pregnancy vitamin D deficiency and gestational diabetes: Exploring the link.

Background And Objectives: Diabetes, including gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), and vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency (VDDI) are recognised public health problems. There is conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and GDM. The aim of this study was to explore the incidence of VDDI among pregnant women attending a maternity unit in Sydney, Australia, and the relationship between VDDI in early pregnancy and later development of GDM.

EEG Electrode-induced Skin Injury among Adult Patients Undergoing Ambulatory EEG Monitoring.

: Ambulatory electroencephalography technology has improved in the last 40 years. Many clinicians believe that some skin injury is an unavoidable complication of prolonged EEG monitoring. In this study, we examined potential risk factors associated with electrode-induced skin injury in adult patients with AEEG monitoring.

"Unscrambling what's in your head": A mixed method evaluation of clinical supervision for midwives.

Background: As a strategy to promote workforce sustainability a number of midwives working in one health district in New South Wales, Australia were trained to offer a reflective model of clinical supervision. The expectation was that these midwives would then be equipped to facilitate clinical supervision for their colleagues with the organisational aim of supporting professional development and promoting emotional well-being.

Aim: To identify understanding, uptake, perceptions of impact, and the experiences of midwives accessing clinical supervision.

Evidence based nursing and midwifery practice in a regional Australian healthcare setting: Behaviours, skills and barriers.

Aim: To establish self-reported skill levels, behaviours and barriers in relation to evidence-based practice (EBP) among a representative sample of regional Australian nurses and midwives in senior roles.

Background: It has been widely established that nurses and midwives continue to face challenges in relation to putting evidence into practice on the clinical floor. Prior to conducting an EBP capacity building activity in a regional Australian Local Health District, a survey assessing needs and skill and barrier areas was conducted.

Models of care choices in today's nursing workplace: where does team nursing sit?

This paper provides an overview of the developmental history of models of care (MOC) in nursing since Florence Nightingale introduced nurse training programs in a drive to make nursing a discipline-based career option. The four principal choices of models of nursing care delivery (primary nursing, individual patient allocation, team nursing and functional nursing) are outlined and discussed, and recent MOC literature reviewed. The paper suggests that, given the ways work is being rapidly reconfigured in healthcare services and the pressures on the nursing workforce projected into the future, team nursing seems to offer the best solutions.

Factors influencing how senior nurses and midwives acquire and integrate coaching skills into routine practice: a grounded theory study.

Aim: To introduce a theory which describes the process of and explicates the factors moderating, the acquisition and integration of leadership coaching skills into the routine practice of senior nurses and midwives.

Background: Organizations invest significant resources in leadership coaching programs to ensure that coaching is embedded as a core function of the manager's role. However, even after training, many managers remain unable to undertake this role successfully.

Randomized controlled trial of laxative use in postcolostomy surgery patients.

Purpose: We compared a standardized postoperative laxative protocol to laxatives provided on an ad hoc basis by the surgical team.

Subjects And Setting: Forty-five patients who underwent colostomy surgery participated in the study. The research setting was 2 acute care facilities in south-eastern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Changing model of nursing care from individual patient allocation to team nursing in the acute inpatient environment.

Agreement was reached with 12 acute medical and surgical wards/units at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital to participate in a trial of team nursing (TN). Six units employed action research principles to undertake a change to a team nursing model and six remained with the pre-existing individual patient allocation (IPA) model. Task-based teaming was widely discarded by the team nursing units in favour of allocating patients within the team and introducing more supportive and communicative processes aimed at fostering responsibility sharing.

Starting a care improvement journey: focusing on the essentials of bedside nursing care in an Australian teaching hospital.

Aims And Objectives: To evaluate and improve patient assessment practices, care practices, recognition of patient deterioration and communication in the acute ward environment.

Background: A growing recognition of patient safety-related concerns in acute hospitals, a nursing shortage and a reduction in availability of skill and experience levels at the bedside led a group of clinicians to explore the issues that impacted on patient care at a ward level within their organisation.

Design: Multimethod practice development study.