Action Products

Jean Hayes, RN, MS, now retired from Purdue University (North Central) School of Nursing in Indiana and from her long-standing practice in the home health care industry, says she’s seen it all. Interviewed at length by our Action Products blog editor, Hayes recalls the evolution of nursing practices over her forty year career.

Some things haven’t changed over the past 100 years, Wendy Elliman writes in Hadassah Magazine, but nursing education certainly has.

Back in 1921, the first graduates of the Hadassah Nursing School were called upon to serve with “a conscience beyond appeal” and to be calm in self-evaluation, with balanced judgment and great strength.  Today, Miri Rom, dean of the Henrietta Szold Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing explains, in addition to developing those traits, nurses are required to exercise judgment, critical thinking, communication, and decision-making. Bedside nursing with skilled and educated nurses, Elliman reflects, has replaced bedpan nursing. 

“The goal for pressure ulcer incidence should be zero,” writes Kathy Duncan, R.N., referring to the 2008-initiated 5 Million Lives Campaign at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pressure injuries cause considerable harm to patients...

“Perioperative team members should implement measures to prevent patients from sliding on the OR bed (in Steep Trendelenberg),” the revised AORN Guidelines stress, specifically mentioning viscoelastic gel overlays (Page E31, X.f.1).

“Adequate patient positioning must avoid skin, peripheral nerve, and muscles injuries, and ocular and cognitive complications mainly related to Steep Trendelenburg positioning in pelvic procedures,” sciencedirect.com cautions. 

Why all the fuss about viscoelasticity? What, really, is that property of materials used in the prevention of pressure injury in the OR?