Preparedness of Intensive Care Unit Nurses Case Study

Preparedness of Intensive Care Unit Nurses - Case Study Example Just by the looks of it, not only are researchers in agreement as to what good palliative care is; there is also a tall task that is assigned to nurses in palliative care. Amidst constant cry for better training and preparation, palliative care nurses are expected to perform these tasks that entail not only academic inputs but psychological and emotional preparedness as well. As we have seen above, even oncology nurses find themselves still wanting when it comes to providing quality end-of-life care, though, no one can deny that palliative nurses are supposed to be the model for end-of-life care. Given these demands of palliative care, and given the fact that even the conference cites palliative care as the guide for quality end-of-life care in the ICU, let us now turn to examine the present situation of UK ICU nurses. After which, we shall see whether they are prepared for end-of-life care, as discussed above, or if they are still wanting. Let us first look at some facts about UK IC U Nurses. We will do the assessment as to their preparedness or unpreparedness after.   ICU nurses may receive training for advanced life support skills.   That nurses may undergo training to be able to provide the following: manual defibrillation, shock advisory defibrillation, intravenous cannulation, intravenous adrenaline administration, laryngeal mask airway insertion, and tracheal intubation (O’Higgins et al. 2001: 46-47). This is an improvement in line with an earlier survey which states that only â€Å"12 percent of British nurses regularly performed arterial puncture† compared to 75 percent of Swedish nurses that regularly do such a procedure (Depasse et al. 1998: 939). Within the same report, it was also stated that British nurses are less involved in invasive procedures, in spite of higher levels of staffing (1998: 944). In the magazine, Nursing (2000: 32 cc6), it was reported that aside from ICU nurses being overworked which may result in increased mortality rate, other factors exist that may contribute to higher mortality rates during peak hours.