Date of Award
Summer 2022
Document Type
Project – Full Written
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
Committee Chair
Abby Garlock
Abstract
Geriatric patients 65 years old and older admitted to the medical surgical trauma unit with rib fractures had increased readmission rates to the trauma ICU, due to respiratory insufficiency within the last 12 months. This DNP project followed all patients admitted to the trauma service of a Level I trauma hospital with rib fractures/blunt chest trauma during the months of February 2-April 30, 2022. The focus was on the nurse-driven protocol, which included providing incentive spirometer education to the trauma patient for aggressive pulmonary hygiene and documenting patients’ achievements and goals into the medical record. Registered nurses (RN) were asked to document on even hours or at least every 2 hours and nursing assistants (NA) to document on odd hours or at least every 2 hours in the patient medical record. The results indicated that out of 250 patients, RNs documented IS use on 24 patients and NAs documented on 14 patients. There was no change in the rate of newly acquired pneumonia during the months of the project intervention compared to previous data.
Recommended Citation
Ali, Sharon F., "Incentive Spirometer Use in Trauma Patients 65 Years and Older with Rib Fractures/Chest Trauma" (2022). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 55.
https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/nursing-dnp/55
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License