ADN111 – Advance15 – Inpatient Care

Learn in your own time with this fully flexible Advance15TM Course.

This course will  equip you with a systematic approach to managing and delivering good inpatient care.  Make those small changes that can improve your patient’s experience from admit to discharge. We’ll focus on improving your confidence and nursing skills to ensure that you’re doing the very best for your inpatients.

Get the help you need to deal effectively with your small animal inpatients.

Use your new knowledge and skills straight away in your practice.

Complete the course and get your CPD / CE Certificate for 15 Hours of learning. Revisit your course materials at any time during your 12 months’ access to refresh your knowledge whenever you have a relevant patient.

Session 1: Patient Safety

What do we mean by patient safety? Why is this important to consider?

The main goal of assessing patient safety is obviously to keep the patient safe during their hospitalisation.  Based upon the NHS 2022 National Patient Safety Guide, we will discuss the importance of some simple changes that you can make in wards to improve patient safety, including

• Safety Huddles
• Clinical governance
• Using Checklists
• Identifying patients
• Using medicines safely
• Prevention of infection

Approaches to inpatient care

• What is holistic nursing?
• Nursing care plans- what they entail and how to implement them
• Assessing the basics for patient benefit

Session 2: Ward Management

To provide great patient care you have to have correctly trained staff, provide consistent care, in a clean and organised environment. We will discuss:

• Staff training and practice protocols
• How to monitor standards using evidence-based research
• How to hold positive ward meetings for brain storming new ideas
• The importance of having a structured daily, weekly, monthly task list to promote a good wards environment
• Clinical Handovers
• The importance of paperwork
• Optimal client care

Nursing care of the surgical inpatient

There is a vast amount of research concentrating on improving mortality rates in surgical patients. This is clearly shown by the Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Small Animal Fatalities (CEPSAF) study carried out in 2006 which demonstrates the percentage of deaths in recovery is higher than that of pre-medication, induction and maintenance periods. The study identified the recovery period as the greatest risk during anaesthesia with most deaths occurring within 3 hours of the procedure.

Using the recommendations highlighted within this session it may be possible to reduce mortality rates while improving nursing care intervention.

Session 3: Pain assessment tools

Managing pain in all our inpatients is vital and as veterinary nurses we have a moral and ethical duty to mitigate pain to the best of our ability. This session will cover:

• The importance of managing pain
• Recognising the impact of pain if left untreated
• A multi-modal approach to pain
• Why we should be using a pain scoring system?
• Challenges of using a pain scoring system and where to implement one
• Using acute and chronic pain scoring systems in practice

A multimodal approach to pain in our patients

A multimodal approach to pain is when two or more analgesic drugs from different classes are administered to inhibit nociception at different points along the afferent pain pathway. In this session we will cover:

• The physiology and terminology associated with pain
• The definition of pain
• The types of pain we see in our veterinary patients
• Why it’s so important to alleviate pain
• Analgesic drug options
• Identify other non-pharmalogical alternatives to treating pain

Session 4: Indwelling lines

In wards there will be a variety of indwelling lines to care for. It is vital that you feel confident to use, care for and be able to highlight possible complications of these indwelling lines. We will discuss the care and common complications of some indwelling lines.

• Intravenous catheters
• Indwelling urinary catheter
• Central line
• Arterial line
• Chest drains
• Tracheostomy tube
• Feeding tubes

Nutrition

When pets are being fed as inpatients they are at their most vulnerable medically, increasing the need for good nutrition while they are hospitalised. By taking a systematic approach using Yura and Walsh’s assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation (APIE) techniques, we as veterinary nurses may be more successful in assisting patients to consume their resting energy rate orally.

This will ultimately lead to shorter recovery times and hopefully increased job satisfaction. We will discuss assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation strategies in relation to nutrition.

What do Veterinary Nurses Say About This Course?

‘Easy to follow webinars, able to engage throughout. All content provided is relevant to everyday working life as a Veterinary Nurse.’

‘Love the flexible format enabling me to fit learning in with general life.’

Tutor

Stacey Cox RVN HeDipCVN AVN

Any Questions? Call us now on 0151 328 0444