American Association of Critical-Care Nurses

The goal of the practice alerts is to help nurses and other health care practitioners carry their bold voices to the bedside to directly impact patient care. Practice alerts are succinct, dynamic directives from AACN that are supported by authoritative evidence to ensure excellence in practice and a safe and humane work environment.

The topics will address both nursing and multidisciplinary activities of importance to acute and critically ill patients or their environments. As the undisputed voice of critical care, AACN will issue practice alerts to:

• Close research/practice gap
• Provide guidance
• Standardize practice
• Identify/inform about new advances/trends

Practice Alerts are short directives designed for easy reference. The first part of the Practice Alert is the clinical information followed by references to support the clinical statements. Each Practice Alert will be listed under the Practice Alert subject header in the Table of Contents.

The Practice Alerts may have materials available for you to use to assist with staff education or performance improvement activities. These materials will be located in the Table of Contents under the Education Tool Box or Performance Improvement Tool Box subject headers under the specific Practice Alert.

Additional Practice Alerts will be added as warranted, based on why AACN issues Practice Alerts. Recognizing that practice is dynamic the Practice Alerts will be reviewed and updated to reflect any research based changes.

If you encounter problems in opening any of the documents, please try following these steps:

• Place cursor over document to be opened & right click
• Select "Save Target as" (If security alert appears, click 'OK')
• Save document to your Desk Top
• Go to your desktop & open file

PRACTICE ALERTS

Oral Care in the Critically Ill - Issued 8/2006
Noninvasive Blood Pressure Monitoring - Issued 5/11/2006, Rev. 1: 6/2006
Severe Sepsis - Issued 04/2006
Deep Vein Thrombosis Prevention - Issued 12/2005
Preventing Catheter-Related Bloodstream Infections - Issued 9/2005
Verification of Feeding Tube Placement Issued 5/2005
Dye in Enteral Feedings - Issued 4/2005
Family Presence During CPR and Invasive Procedures - Issued 11/2004
ST Segment Monitoring - Issued 8/2004
Dysrhythmia Monitoring - Issued 8/2004
Educational Power Point Presentation- Dysrhythmia & ST Segment Monitoring - Issued 5/2005
   (1.49 MB; Please save document before opening)
Pulmonary Artery Pressure Measurement (PAP) - Issued 5/2004
Educational Power Point Presentation- PAP Measurement Education - Issued 5/2004
    (3.83 MB; Please save document before opening)
Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) - Issued 2/2004; Rev. 1: 1/2008
Educational Power Point Presentation- VAP Education Program - Issued 3/2004; Rev. 1: 1/2008
   (1.98 MB; Please save document before opening)
Performance Improvement Tools:
   Directions for Conducting Audits of HOB Elevation - Issued 2/2004 Rev. 1: 9/20/2006; Revised 1/2008
   Data Collection Tool for HOB Elevation - Issued 2/2004 Rev. 1: 4/2004; Rev. 2: 1/2008