Collaboration and implementation of an annual comprehensive stroke education program.

Collaboration among all stakeholders is imperative in the design of a program to meet the educational needs of non-clinical staff as well as medical-surgical, transitional care, and critical care nurses to provide quality care for stroke patients. The responsibility for educating hospital employees most often falls to staff development educators. The described program is unique in that direct-care nurses played an integral role in the development, implementation, and maintenance of this annual program.

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome.

Early recognition of this drug-induced condition can prevent death.

Anticoagulation self-monitoring.

Small, hand-held monitoring devices are available that patients undergoing long-term warfarin therapy can use to monitor their prothrombin time (PT) and international normalized ratio (INR). PT and INR can be quickly and accurately measured, using only a drop of capillary blood obtained from a finger stick. Convenient monitoring allows for frequent monitoring, which results in improved client outcomes and fewer of the complications commonly associated with anticoagulation therapy.