Abstract
This article presents suggestions for nurses to gain skill, competence, and comfort in caring for critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilatory support, with a specific focus on education strategies and building communication skills with these challenging nonverbal patients. Engaging in evidence-based practice projects at the unit level and participating in or leading research studies are key ways nurses can contribute to improving outcomes for patients receiving mechanical ventilation. Suggestions are offered for evidence-based practice projects and possible research studies to improve outcomes and advance the science in an effort to achieve quality patient-ventilator management in intensive care units.
Although most of the technical aspects of managing the mechanical ventilator are the responsibility of respiratory care practitioners, nurses are responsible for the holistic care of patients, including management of common symptoms and responses to mechanical ventilatory support. To care for patients effectively, nurses must be comfortable and confident in their knowledge of basic principles of mechanical ventilatory support and must implement appropriate interventions to manage patients’ many responses to this common treatment effectively, which can be particularly challenging in nonverbal patients.
Three articles1–3 presented as a series in the June 2011 issue of Critical Care Nurse address selected aspects of caring for patients receiving mechanical ventilatory support based on the authors’ expertise and include an overview of mechanical ventilatory support,1 promoting effective communication with patients receiving mechanical ventilation,2 and an overview of complementary and alternative therapies for critically ill patients.3 The overall purpose of that series of articles was to empower and educate nurses with respect to caring for patients receiving mechanical ventilatory support. In addition to specific implications for nursing practice and research contained in each of the articles, we offer as a summary to the series additional suggestions to promote patient-centered care with an emphasis on implications for evidence-based nursing practice and implications for nursing research. We do so in order to enhance the art and science of caring for patients receiving mechanical ventilatory support so that quality outcomes can be achieved.