Evidence based practice on a diabetes patient.

Writing/speaking assignment explanation-

This assignment is designed to help you to further analyze your care of the individual and apply best practice standards and use available evidence to assess or improve upon your nursing care in practice. Please do not include any names (use initials only) in your paper or presentation.

Assignment Layout

Section 1

Pick a client that you worked with during clinical and describe what you did for that client (assessments and interventions). If you were unable to do some of the cares but were aware of nursing and medical interventions that were in place please include these in this section also. It is ok to speak in the first person for this section of the paper.

Section 2

Write about your client’s primary or most pertinent pathophysiological process that affected their care using at least two scholarly resources. (See additional page included with this explanation)

Section 3

Research best practice standards of nursing care for your client’s pathophysiological process or specific nursing needs/skills being performed. Explain these standards of nursing practice and/or research sources that describe how to best provide care for your patient. Areas covered should include expected assessment findings, nursing interventions, expected outcomes, and health promotion activities related to the specific condition or health need. Please use at least two scholarly resources to demonstrate where you obtained this information.

Written assignment guidelines

1. Make use of the Cinahl and LIRN databases to obtain information for this paper. If you have problems containing a full article, not just an abstract, work with the online librarian to obtain the article you need. Make sure you don’t wait until the last minute for this or it may not be possible to obtain it.

2. Use APA formatting for this paper. Numerous APA style tip lists are available in the student writing center. The Purdue Owl is an excellent resource online.

3. This paper should be from 5-6 pages long, typed and double-spaced. The length does not include the title page or reference page.

4. Overall the paper should include at least two references. Must have at least 2 references that are obtained from journal articles.

Oral presentation layout

Your oral presentation near the end of class will allow you a chance to describe your case scenario and what you have learned from your research paper so that it can be shared with the class as a whole. Describe how the care you provided lined up with what you researched. What might you do differently if you were to care for this patient again? What obstacles were in your way that may have or did prevent you or the nurse from providing care that was evidenced-based or within the realm of best practice guidelines?

Oral assignment guidelines

1. Presentations should be between 3-4 minutes in length. 

2. You may have 1-2 minutes for questions from classmates afterwards that are not included in this time. 

3. Presentation must include some type of visual aide or handout for your classmates. You will have access to AV materials (ex. Power Point) if desired. Please let the instructor know ahead of time if there are any more advanced technological requirements for your presentation.

Scenario to use for the above questions;

The patient, Juan Carlos, has just returned after surgical debridement of a diabetic foot ulcer on his right great toe. The procedure was done under local anesthesia, and I would like to give you a report on him before I hand him over to you.

Mr. Carlos is a 52-year-old Hispanic male with a history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia who presented in the emergency department last night complaining of pain in a wound on his right great toe. He states he dropped a large rock on his toe several weeks ago and sustained an open wound. The pain had been increasing over the last days, and he was unable to get the pain under control. He was then admitted for surgical debridement of what showed to be a diabetic ulcer and to receive antibiotic treatment.

This morning at 0730 Mr. Carlos’s blood sugar was 225 and he received 4 units of insulin aspart, a sliding scale insulin, along with his regular medications before the surgery. It is all in the MAR. He also received his antibiotic treatment this morning as prescribed. The surgery was performed under local anesthesia. He was given one tablet of oxycodone 5 mg/acetaminophen 325 mg for his pain after surgery. He now reports his pain to be 3 out of 10. He has a dressing on the toe and a right forearm IV that is saline locked. The dressing on his toe is dry and intact. He seems to be doing well, and his wife has just been here to see him.

He is due for a check of blood sugar level and vital signs. The provider has just updated the orders, so please take a look at the patient chart to see all details.