Progressive care nursing is a complex, challenging area of nursing practice, where clinical expertise is developed over time by integrating progressive care knowledge, clinical skills, and caring practices. This textbook, the first to specifically address the educational needs of the new progressive care practitioner, succinctly presents essential information about how best to safely and competently care for acutely ill patients and their families.
As it has since the first edition, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses reaffirms this book’s value to the AACN community and especially to clinicians at the point of care. The title continues to carry AACN’s name, as it has since the first edition.
AACN Essentials of Progressive Care Nursing provides essential information on the care of adult acutely ill patients and families. The book recognizes the learner’s need to assimilate foundational knowledge before attempting to master more complex progressive care nursing concepts. Written by nationally acknowledged clinical experts in critical and acute care nursing, this textbook sets the standard for progressive care nursing education.
AACN Essentials of Progressive Care Nursing:
• Succinctly presents essential information for the safe and competent care of progressive care patients and their families, building on the clinician’s significant medical-surgical nursing knowledge base, avoiding repetition of previously acquired information
• Stages the introduction of advanced concepts in progressive care nursing after essential concepts have been mastered
• Provides clinicians with clinically relevant tools and guides to use as they care for progressive care patients and families
The AACN Essentials of Progressive Care Nursing is divided into four parts:
• Part I: The Essentials presents essential information that clinicians must understand to provide safe, competent nursing care to the majority of progressive care patients, regardless of their underlying medical diagnoses. This part includes content on essential concepts of assessment, diagnosis, planning, and interventions common to progressive care patients and families; interpretation and management of cardiac rhythms; hemodynamic monitoring; airway and ventilatory management; pain and sedation management; pharmacology; and ethical and legal considerations. Chapters in Part I present content in enough depth to ensure that essential information is available for the new progressive care clinician to develop competence, while sequencing pathological conditions in Part II and advanced content in a later part of the book (Part III).
• Part II: Pathologic Conditions covers pathologic conditions and management strategies commonly encountered in progressive care, closely paralleling the blueprint for the PCCN certification examination. Chapters in this part are organized by body systems and selected progressive care conditions (cardiovascular, respiratory, multisystem, neurologic, hematologic and immune, gastrointestinal, renal, endocrine, and trauma).
• Part III: Advanced Concepts in Caring for the Progressive Care Patient presents advanced progressive care concepts or pathologic conditions that are more complex and represent expert level information. Specific advanced chapter content includes ECG concepts, cardiovascular concepts, and neurologic concepts.
• Part IV: Key Reference Information contains reference information that clinicians will find helpful in the clinical area (normal laboratory and diagnostic values; algorithms for advanced cardiac life support; and summary tables of progressive care drugs and cardiac rhythms). Content is presented primarily in table format for quick reference.
Each chapter in Part I, II, and III, begins with “Knowledge Competencies” that can be used to guide informal or formal teaching and to gauge the learner’s progress. In addition, each of the chapters provide “Essential Content Case” studies that focus on key information presented in the chapters in order to assist clinicians in understanding the chapter content and how to best assess and manage conditions and problems encountered in progressive care. The case studies also are designed to enhance the learners understanding of the magnitude of the pathologic problems/conditions and their impact on patients and families. Questions and answers are provided for each case so the learner may test his/her knowledge of the essential content.
I believe that there is no greater way to protect our patients than to ensure that an educated clinician cares for them. Safe passage in progressive care is ensured by competent, skilled, knowledgeable, and caring clinicians. I sincerely believe that this textbook will help you make it so!
Suzi Burns