Critical Care A-Z / Nursing & Emergency Medicines for PC and Mac

1. Support the decisions of the patient or designated surrogate, or transfer care to an equally qualified critical care nurse.

2. Critical care nurses work in a wide variety of settings, filling many roles including bedside clinicians, nurse educators, nurse researchers, nurse managers, clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners.

3. Critical care nurses practice in settings where patients require complex assessment, high-intensity therapies and interventions and continuous nursing vigilance.

4. A critical care nurse is a licensed professional nurse who is responsible for ensuring that acutely and critically ill patients and their families receive optimal care.

5. Critical care nurses rely upon a specialized body of knowledge, skills and experience to provide care to patients and families and create environments that are healing, humane and caring.

6. Foremost, the critical care nurse is a patient advocate.

7. In the critical care setting, they are most frequently clinical nurse specialists (CNS) or acute care nurse practitioners (ACNP).

8. With the onset of managed care and the resulting migration of patients to alternative settings, critical care nurses are caring for patients who are more ill than ever before.

9. Managed care has also fueled a growing demand for advanced practice nurses in the acute care setting.

10. Critical care nursing is that specialty within nursing that deals specifically with human responses to life-threatening problems.

11. Critical Care is a comprehensive collection of reference concisely covering the core topics and controversies of critical care.