Decision Support for Care Delivery

All of the reading this week made me reflect on my personal biases and assumptions when providing patient care. I work in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where the population- being newborns- cannot verbally tell me when they hurt, I have to rely on physical signs and sypmptoms such as high blood pressure, high heart rate, and facial grimacing or restlessness. I often try physical comfort measures first, such as holding, changing diapers, feeding, respositiong the patient prior to giving pain medication. I know that as a NICU nurse I must follow-up on the reaction of the patient to my intervention in a timely manner. It is very important to provide safe interventions to my patients. If I am not familiar with a certain pain medication, I look it up or reasearch it before administration to ensure that I know what the side effects are and what to expect from the literature. I also like the fact that in my NICU, the medical personnel work as a team to provide the best patient care, collaboration with the pharmacist, the doctor, the nurse practitioner and other team members can be priceless when providing patient care.