Youth suicide is the third leading cause of death for persons between 15-24 years of age, and almost 4,600 youth deaths each year are the result of suicide for a person 10-24 years of age (Smischney, Chrisler, & Villarruel, 2014). Learning of these numbers is very discouraging considering that suicide can be prevented by recognition and implication of interventions. Adolescents may present to family, friends, or teacher’s signs of suicidal behavior such as talk of suicide, threat of suicide, or risky behavior. Sometimes the adolescent may not display warning signs before committing suicide. It is important to identify risk factors that can lead to suicide. Risk factors that contribute to suicidal ideation are biological, environmental, and psychological factors (Smischney et al., 2014).

Biological risk factors include gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. The male gender is 4 times greater to attempt suicide that results in death, whereas female adolescents experience higher rates of depression. Native American or Alaska Natives that are between the ages of 15-24 are at a 2.4 percent higher rate than the national average. Suicidal ideation is higher amongst gay and bisexual male adolescents than heterosexual male adolescents. This may due to the adolescent’s parents or friends lack of approval or support (Smischney et al., 2014).

Environmental risk factors that contribute to suicide include family stress and conflict such as divorce, death of a loved one, academic failure, and abuse. During adolescence, peer relationships greatly contribute to suicide. Adolescents who suffer from poor social skills, low self-esteem, and lack support from their peers are at greater risk for suicidal ideation (Smischney et al., 2014).

Psychological risk factors contributing to adolescent suicide include mental health problems, psychiatric disorders, poor coping skills, and substance abuse. Mental health disorders include anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia. Alcohol is often experienced with by adolescents. Female adolescents are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide and male adolescents are 17 times more likely to attempt suicide when alcohol is involved (Smischney et al., 2014).

Primary, secondary, and tertiary heath prevention measures can be taken to prevent suicide. Primary prevention can be implemented by addressing the topic of suicide with adolescents, identifying risk factors of suicide, and talking about ways to avoid risk factors that can lead to suicide. Secondary prevention can be done by addressing risk factors that the adolescent is experiencing and implementing healthy and effective interventions. This will help to reduce the chance of the adolescent following through with the act of suicide. Tertiary prevention should include providing support and resources to the adolescent, as well ensuring safety. Measures should be taken to prevent the adolescent from attempting and succeeding at suicide.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center is a resource that provides contact information and suicide prevention plans specific for each state. This information can be accessed through the website http://www.sprc.org/states. Adolescents can also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 by calling 1-800-273-8255, or going online to https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. Both of these resources offer support to those who are experiencing a suicidal crisis. As a nurse if you suspect a depressed adolescent is in immediate danger of harming themselves, immediate intervention should be implemented such as ensuring the safety of the adolescent. If the nurse is physically present at the adolescent’s side, taking the adolescent to a safe environment and informing a physician is important to prevent harm or injury. If the nurse is talking with the adolescent over the phone and the adolescent is posing immediate danger to themselves, proper authorities should be notified and full detail of the adolescent’s location and situation should be provided.

References

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, (n.d.). Get help. Retrieved from https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Smischney, T. M., Chrisler, A., & Villarruel, F. A., (2014). Risk factors for adolescent suicide: Research brief. Retrieved from https://reachmilitaryfamilies.umn.edu/sites/default/files/rdoc/Adolescent%20Suicide.pdf

Suicide Prevention Resource Center, (2017). Organizations: States. Retrieved from http://www.sprc.org/states

Case Study, Chapter 10, Mandatory Minimum Staffing Ratios

A nurse manager is attending a national convention and is attending a concurrent session on staffing ratios. Minimum staffing ratios are being discussed in the nurse manager’s own state. The nurse manager has a number of questions about staffing ratios that the session is covering. The nurse manager knows that evidence exists that increasing the number of RNs in the staffing mix leads to safer workplaces for nurses and higher quality of care for patients.

1. What are the three general approaches recommended by the American Nurses Association (2017) to maintain sufficient staffing?

2. Summarize the findings that are often cited as the seminal work in support of establishing minimum staffing ratio legislation at the federal or state level.

3. Analyze what proponents and critics say about whether mandatory minimum staffing ratios are needed.

Assignment 2:

Practicum Assignment 1: Self-Assessment of Clinical Skills

A self-assessment is an opportunity for you to review what you have learned in the program, evaluate your clinical skills, and develop goals before exiting the NP program. For this assignment, you will complete the Risk Control Self-Assessment Checklist for Nurse Practitioners and identify your areas of strength and weakness. You also will explain how you plan to improve on these weaknesses, as well as how you plan to master clinical skills you have not obtained prior to exiting NP program.

To prepare:

Complete the Risk Control Self-Assessment Checklist for Nurse Practitioners

Review preceptor and faculty evaluations in Meditrek for all completed clinical courses

Consider your strengths and weaknesses

Review types of patients treated and clinical procedures performed

By Day 7

Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:

Identify at least three strengths

Explain why you consider these strengths and what you can do to maintain them in your practice

Identify at least three weaknesses

Explain how you plan to address each weakness

Examine at least three clinical skills you need to obtain prior to exiting the program

Explain how you plan to master the clinical skills before exiting NP program

 

Analyze the history of advanced practice nurses and the emerging role of your specialty area, and discuss what contributions you plan to make to advance the nursing profession

Create a 6–8-slide PowerPoint presentation that describes  communication barriers within an interdisciplinary team and how those  barriers affect patient safety and health care outcomes. Offer a  solution in which you recommend evidence-based strategies to improve  communication within the team and explain how the strategies benefit the  team and patients.

The ability to effectively communicate as part of interdisciplinary  collaboration is essential for patient safety and successful health  care delivery.

Effective communication is important in all organizations and is  especially important in the area of health care. Communication can come  in many forms, but the crucial factor is whether the communication is  effective.

Collaboration among teams is important for the delivery of  appropriate medical care and for providing the specialized skills  necessary to meet the needs of patients and the public. Assessing the  needs of a community may involve communication across several public  service providers and private entities.

Maintaining open communication and collaboration among teams is  essential to assess the needs of a community or those of patients and  their families within a health care system. The same communication  skills must be evident within the interdisciplinary health care team, or  across the public and private sectors in a community, in order to  promote collaboration and understanding and to provide the utmost  quality service.

Imagine you are part of an interdisciplinary health care team in your  organization. Although the team has been working together for several  months, communication between members is not always efficient or  effective, and the situation has become stressful for everyone. The team  leader asks you to develop a presentation for the team that addresses  the issue.

Preparation

Search the Capella library and the Internet for scholarly and  professional peer-reviewed articles on communication. You will need at  least three articles to use as support for your work on this assessment.

Directions

Create a 6–8-slide PowerPoint presentation to examine the  communication issue and the risk it creates for positive health care  outcomes.

• Describe the types of communication barriers that occur within an interdisciplinary team.
• Explain how the communication barriers can impact patient safety and health care outcomes.
• Recommend specific evidence-based strategies to improve communication within the team.
• Explain how the strategies will benefit team members and patients.

Use the notes section of each slide to expand your points and cite  your supporting evidence. Also, include a title slide and a reference  slide that lists the resources you used in this assessment.

Additional Requirements

• Use APA format for citations and references.
• Be creative. Consider your intended audience.

HIT Projects and Decision Makers
A nurse leader sought to implement greater security in the children’s wing of the hospital by installing a new alarm and monitoring system. Due to budget constraints, the CNO rejected the proposal, stating that current security methods were sufficient. Shortly after this failed proposal, an individual did in fact breach the children’s wing security and abducted a young child. Thankfully, the child was found and returned to her parents; and the CNO quickly found the money to install the new security system.
Not all HIT projects have such high-profile stakes. The main takeaway from this example is the importance of getting key stakeholders and decision makers on board when planning a new HIT project.
To prepare:

• Bring      to mind a HIT project implemented in your organization. Which leaders      identified the project? Which stakeholders and decision makers helped      moved the project forward?
• Consider      methods that were used to garner the support of stakeholders and decision      makers to move the project forward.

By tomorrow Wednesday 09/20/17, write a minimum of 550 words essay in APA format with a minimum of 3 references from the list in the instructions area. Include the level one headings as numbered below:

post a cohesive response that addresses the following:

1) Describe an example of a HIT project implemented at your organization and analyze how that project was identified and moved forward. (HIT stands for Health Information Technology, pick one that was implemented in the hospital. One project that comes to my mind is when my hospital upgraded their EHR system from MEDITECH to EPIC system).

2) Evaluate the impact of key decision makers on moving the HIT project forward.

Required Readings

Course Text: Ball, M. J., Douglas, J. V., Hinton Walker, P., DuLong, D., Gugerty, B., Hannah, K. J., . . . Troseth, M. R. (Eds.) (2011). Nursing informatics: Where technology and caring meet (4th ed.). London, England: Springer-Verlag.

• Chapter      17, “Disruptive Innovation: Point of Care”

This chapter uses real-world integration examples to illustrate the visions and challenges that characterize Smart Point of Care systems.

Course Text: American Nurses Association. (2008). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice. Silver Spring, MD: Author.

• “Standards      of Nursing Informatics Practice” (pp. 67-79)

This excerpt presents the specific measurement criteria found within each nursing informatics standard.

Madsen, M. (2010). Knowledge and information modeling. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 151, 84-103.

Within this article, the overall design models of information systems are linked to the metastructures, data, information, knowledge, and wisdom.

Peleg, M. (2011). The role of modeling in clinical information system development life cycle. Methods of Information in Medicine, 50(1), 7-10.

The author of this article discusses the role of conceptual modeling in health information technology systems and how it has been an effective component of system development.

Philip, A., Afolabi, B., Adeniran, O., Oluwatolani, O., & Ishaya, G. (2010). Towards an efficient information systems development process and management: A review of challenges and proposed strategies. Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 3(10), 983-989.

This article examines the phases and methodologies found within the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and proposes a framework for establishing the crucial roles that participants must play during the SDLC.

Szydlowski, S., & Smith, C. (2009). Perspectives from nurse leaders and chief information officers on health information technology implementation. Hospital Topics, 87(1), 3-9.

Qualitative research is used in this article to examine the trends, goals, outcomes, barriers, and mistakes that hospital leaders may experience when implementing health information technology systems.

Required Media

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). Transforming nursing and healthcare through technology: Systems analysis. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 11 minutes.

The presenters in this week’s media presentation outline the stages involved when implementing a new technology system.

Optional Resources

Burgess, L., & Sargent, J. (2007). Enhancing user acceptance of mandated mobile health information systems: The ePOC (electronic Point-Of-Care Project) experience. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 129(Pt 2), 1088-1092.