Excerpt from Term Paper :

MS Case Study Nurse Practice

When patients enter hospitals it is oftentimes they become more ill and sicker due to inappropriate care and professional ignorance. This is due mainly to the amount of hubris involved within the medical profession and a tendency to ignore empirical evidence as practiced to success. This approach underlines the most important aspects of healing and the medical profession itself.

The argument for continued improvement in the treatment of patients is best exemplified in the case of MS. His ill health has led to more problems and the approach by the nurse practitioner and her staff is critical to the ultimate survival of this young child who innocently trusted the advice of both his parents or caretakers that the medical staff would be able to treat him with the care and respect that every patient deserves when being encountered during a medical treatment or hospital stay. This is essential what nurses do and how they must approach their work, in a professional and dignified manner that admits mistakes when they happen and look to the present to find solutions so they do not occur in the future.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss and highlight the proper and relevant strategies in the case of MS. MS' situation is the following: " MS is 15-year-old adolescent with cerebral and developmental disorder. He had ICU care because of viral pneumonia. He currently was transferred from the hospital to the facility. Because of his disease, he cannot eat by mouth thus he is provided the feeding by Gastro-tube. Also, he cannot move by himself. When arriving at the facility, the nurse noted stage II pressure ulcer on his sacral area. The nurse consulted to a family nurse practitioner who has Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Certification and is a member of wound care team in the facility to ask for management and treatment guidance because the nurse has only taken care of one patient with stage I pressure ulcer.

The family nurse practitioner who was consulted to manage MS's ulcer searched the literature and information about the ulcer. She made order to treat the ulcer and made the strategy to manage the ulcer. She also consulted to the nutritionist in the facility to manage and improve his nutritive conditions. Moreover, she made the strategy to manage and prevent pressure ulcer for patients with same condition in the facility."

The field of wound care is becoming more and more important as new pathways of healing are being discovered through this type of examination of the problems. While competencies may be somewhat unrefined and scattered, it is essential that given the current structure of the nurse practitioner profession, learning and self education, through experiment and theory development are necessary components to adds such validity in such areas as wound treatment.

This essay will review pertinent literature on the subject to highlight the academic perspective on the matter and view possible new directions in which this type of research is headed towards. The essay will then explore relevant strategies to deal with the unique situation and propose actions and plans that reflect a strategy that is consistent with sound and valid ideas reflected in the literature. The essay will then investigate theoretical bases upon which to implement the strategy. An implementation plan will also be included in this document as well as an assessment model to help provide a feedback loop and provide a means of improving and restructuring the model if deemed necessary.

Literature Review

It is important and necessary to examine the research that has been done on the issues reflected in this case. Such areas of research include, wound treatment, patient care, nursing ethics, team management, informatics, viral pneumonia and gastro feeding methods. The following research questions can be useful in aiding the review and applying it to the complex situation at hand:

How can wound treatment research be helpful in treating MS?

What are the risks involved with this approach ?

What are the benefits of a research based approach to clinical issues ?

What are the ethical issues involved with this case ?

How can

The research was premised on the idea that as the field of wound care advances and grows in today's increasingly dangerous society, it is necessary to identify and define useful and practical competencies that can be used to solve these types of problems and issues. She wrote "Accumulating evidence suggests that certified wound care nurses demonstrate superior substantive knowledge compared to noncertified nurses. Wound certified nurse's more accurately stage pressure ulcers and assess lower extremity vascular status than non-certified nurses. With mounting focus on patient safety and outcome performance, job opportunities for certified wound nurses are increasing in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home care, and outpatient wound centers."

This article eventually concluded that the science of wound care is becoming more complex and requires more attention in the field of nursing and developing nurse practitioners. The standard roles of nursing have been adjusted to the point where issues such as the one dealing with MS and his problems must be met with and dealt with in a professional manner that reflects this new paradigm related to wound care and the general environment of the medical industry as it relates to these problems.

The evolution of wound care and how it should be approached has changed significantly over the past decades. The ability for teams to cooperate and find the best solutions has modified the myopic and tired approaches of old. Ennis (2012) explained in his research that the new breakthroughs and discoveries of wound care have forced those in the profession to find better ways of dealing with this issue. He argued "In all other fields of medicine there is a formal process in place for physicians to train, certify, and credential. Medicine is constantly evolving and there have been several new fields of specialty care created over the past two decades that can serve as examples for the wound care field to follow. Without academic-based, clinical residency/fellowship training in wound healing ultimately leading to formal certification, the field will be unable to achieve an appropriate status in the medical establishment. Achieving this goal will impact product innovation, payment, and the sustainability of the field."

This research suggests that new procedures and treatments are most likely to be interwoven as the medical profession continues to advance, grow and evolve. This article encourages nurses and other medical professions to examine the advantages of collaboration and teamwork as the best means to address situations much like the case of MS. The data included in this article directly supports the idea that consultation becomes a very helpful tool in the nurses repertoire that can be applied for the patients overall healing condition and will certainly help in alleviating the operational problems that reorganizing efforts often present.

Mejza (2009) examined the Wound Ostomy and Continence Nurses Society to gather important information about this topic in here research article. The intent of her research was to find ways to mitigate the anticipated role of these types of nurses in the future. To help in making this argument, the author examined the role of specialty nurse vs. The roles of a nurse involved in advanced nursing practice. As a result, the author called for more merging of skills and competencies and placed the nurse at a focal point or classification that can be helpful in assigning roles within clinical situations. The author argued "Even though WOC nursing's evolution toward advanced practice nursing and AACN's decision about DNP by 2015 may appear to be a quantum leap in education for the WOC specialty practice nurse, it is not. WOC specialty nursing practice already encompasses many core competencies of advanced practice nursing. In addition, doctoral practice would provide a better match of a degree with the hours required to attain it, bringing parity with other health professions such as physical therapy who have already moved to a similar educational structure. Doctoral preparation will further strengthen the WOC nurse's independence to practice and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Nursing schools throughout the United States are moving to make DNP education a reality; now is the time to design your preferable future and to support a preferable future for all WOC nurses and their patients."

The cost of not treating these types of wounds can exist beyond simply the patient' suffering and ill health. In order to receive the attention this problems sometimes does not get, it is expedient to place the problems in economic terms. Bennett et al. (2004) examined the financial costs of pressure ulcers in the UK and how it related to hospital costs in their research article. Their article aimed to find…