#trach patient

[denex-international]

Discover the essentials of tracheostomy tubes in our engaging blog! Learn about their uses, different types, sizes, and expert care tips to ensure optimal comfort and health. Get informed and empowered with our comprehensive guide!

[gardenstateofmind]

my scrub jacket got dirty last night while i was helping clean a patient going through bowel prep. it was basically all water coming out at that point, but it was still poop water and i am slightly traumatized

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

My unfeminist trait is that when healthcare workers tell stories about how they wore makeup to work and then some type of patient excrement got stuck to it, that makes me really happy

[dhampir-dyke]

this mfer smoking in the hospital is about to cast spell of explode meemaw

[the-winds-of-destiny-xxx]

.

[justkidneying]

Blocking the Neuromuscular Junction

Neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBAs) stop transmission at the junction between nerves and muscles, which will cause partial or complete paralysis. Why do we want to do this? The main reason is to cause paralysis for starting endotracheal intubation (relax throat muscles), surgery (keep the patient still), and for putting people on ventilators (stop them from fighting against the machine).

You might also give someone an NMBA if they are coughing up blood, having a severe asthma attack, have high intracranial pressure, or are shivering with hypothermia.

There are two types of these drugs and they work two different ways, though they are all given intravenously.

Depolarizing NMBAs

So to initiate muscle contraction, our body uses a transmitter called ACh. When this binds to a receptor, some ions move around and the muscle contracts. This is called depolarization. After some time, the cell can repolarize as ACh is digested by the enzyme AChE.

The main depolarizing NMBA is Succinylcholine. This also binds to the same receptor, causing muscle contraction. However, it is not digested by AChE, so the cell cannot repolarize. The muscle will keep contracting until it runs out of calcium ions and relaxes. The muscle is paralyzed after that because the receptor is still blocked. Only when the serum enzyme BChE digests it can we reactivate the muscle.

Succinylcholine is mostly used for intubation. It only lasts for a few minutes, which is good because once you trach someone you don't need to paralyze their throat anymore.

The main risks of this drug are hyperkalemia (potassium exits the cell when the muscle is depolarized), muscle pain, hyperthermia, and increased intraocular pressure. Succinylcholine is contraindicated in burn patients.

Nondepolarizing NMBAs

These drugs also act on the ACh receptor, though they do not activate it. The most common ones are atracurium, cisatracurium, vecuronium, and rocuronium. I'll go through a few important notes on each one.

Atracurium (an isoquinoline) is metabolized into the active laudanosine, which has a stimulating effect on the central nervous system and can cause seizures. It also increases histamine, which can cause flushing. Cisatracurium is also an isoquinoline, but it does not cause an increase in histamine or break down into laudanosine. Both of these can be reversed using neostigmine to up the concentration of ACh and outcompete them at the receptor.

Rocuronium and vecuronium are both aminosteroids. Rocuronium has a quick onset and is great for rapid sequence intubation. It also does not require dosage adjustment for those with renal impairment. Vecuronium is slower, and needs to be adjusted for those with renal and liver impairment. These can both be reversed with sugammadex, which will form a complex that can be pissed out. The only thing with sugammadex is that it can cause bradycardia, decrease the effectiveness of contraceptives, and increase the risk of bleeding.

The adverse effects of all of the nondepolarizing NMBAs are apnea, hypotension, and electrolyte imbalance. You also need to increase the dose for those with burns and trauma. These drugs also interact with volatile anesthetics, increasing their effects. However, this is actually a favorable effect, as it lowers the dose of anesthetic required.

Using These Drugs

The main thing to remember here is that NMBAs do not cause sedation or amnesia. You must use them with things like propofol, midazolam, benzodiazepines, opioids, etc. I will repeat: DO NOT USE THESE DRUGS ALONE. The patient will be paralyzed but CONCIOUS and AWARE. For the love of medicine, please. The reason I say this is because I have seen paramedics give "problem patients" a paralytic without a sedative in some sick sort of revenge. Fuck them. I don't care what a patient did, that is not okay to do. Still makes me mad just thinking about it.

Anyways, so these are one part of the drugs required for surgery. If you just sedate someone, they'll still move around, and you don't want that while you are cutting on them.

Writing Tips

There isn't too much to say here, but I think it is important for people to know these drugs exist and only paralyze, not sedate. So shit, if you wanna write some crazy horror stuff happening, you can just have someone be paralyzed. Or also this is how people can be aware during surgery. I think there was a big case about this a few years ago. Sensation is still intact when these drugs are given alone, so go forth and torture people I guess (??) - IN FICTION

Anywho, that's all, thanks for reading. Maybe I will write soon about intubation, sedatives, and other stuff like that. Kinda neuro (which one the poll).

[andhumanslovedstories]

Hello! I love your blog very much. I too am a second degree nurse. I just graduated from an ABSN program and I'm struggling to get my foot in the door anywhere despite good grades + honor society membership + in state license already secured. I live in NYC and the nursing shortage here is CRAZY but for some reason no one wants to talk to me. Would you recommend home health nursing for someone in my situation? I did my preceptorship in the ED and that's 100% where I belong, but the bills are really piling up and I have no prospects. How long did you do home health before you went bedside? Thank you for any advice you have!

(Disclaimer though for all this, I'm across the country from you and have no idea the landscape of nursing jobs in NYC.)

I worked in home health for 18 months. If my goal was to get to the hospital as quick as possible, I didn't need to be there that long. I wasn't in any particular rush to move on. Plenty of people worked less than that and got hired at a hospital, I think something like a year was the average. I know the different between sending out my new grad resume and sending out my home health nurse resume was night and day. As in: literally anyone wanted to interview me.

I'd encourage you to at least apply and see if you can interview. You get to interview the company right back, and that'll let you know the kinds of work they expect from you. There are two main types of home health: the kind where you visit a lot of patients in a day and the kind where you're with one patient for the entire shift. The first kind is doing stuff like dressing changes, medication management, or periodic assessment. The second kind is more like general caregiving with nursing related requirements. I mostly did the second one, and worked night shift. So I fed a patient dinner, I gave them a bath, I got them dressed for bed, then tucked them in and stuck around until morning for their needs in the night. But within that was trach management, seizures, G tubes, medications, central lines, ongoing assessment, all that stuff that got this person nursing hours. I'm not gonna lie--it was often very very boring. I read a lot of books.

(btw west coast disclaimer again, but if you're willing to work nights, you'll get hired more easily. Everyone everywhere in the world doesn't have enough night shift coverage. also, oops! this got long and became an essay on home health!)

For downsides, in home health you can get limited training and orientation before you're alone, responsible for a patient. And then it's all on you. I had some gut-dropping moments early on where I encountered something I didn't know how to handle and didn't know how urgent it was. There's supposed someone you can call at all times, but multiple times when I did call, no one picked up. It can be super stressful and frankly dangerous as an inexperienced nurse. Luckily, many times you have the patient's family as a resource. It's likely they've been doing this years longer than you have. Though it's worst thing in the world when you wake someone up at 3 am because you're unsure and concerned, and then have that person explain in a really supportive tone of voice that these frequent, very brief seizures were probably just hiccups. Hypothetically speaking.

You can get too entwined with the patient and family's lives. It's hard to call out sick because you know no one can cover you. It's easy to cross emotional boundaries. Imagine spending 40 hours a week with someone and their family. They'll occupy a spot in your brain.

And I don't think it's a great place for a new nurse to stay for years and years, just for like professional development reasons. You won't get exposure to a variety of patients (unless you work that other type of home health in which case enjoy seeing eight different patients a day, hope traffic doesn't suck), so it's easy to forget stuff you just learned. I never had to think about transfusion reactions until I started at the hospital and shit now it's relevant all the time. I had to completely relearn how to hang an IV piggyback. Plus, since you work alone, you don't get the chance to see how other nurses work. It's hard to figure out a profession when you practice in complete isolation. It's easy to learn bad habits and have no one ever correct you.

But there's a lot I like about home health. You really do have a perspective on patients and patient care that is unique to home health and long-term care. In the hospital, you don't always get that long-term perspective. If you work with someone for a while, you can track how they progress or decline. Why do some clients stay at home for years and others keep going back to the hospital? What's different about their conditions and cares? You see all the work it can take to keep them steady. That's perspective that easy to lose. It helps you put the patient on a timeline that extends beyond the hospital. If you click with a patient and/or family and work with them for a while, it can be very satisfying working with them because you see so clearly the impact you're having.

Also! I read so many fucking books! I listened to so many podcasts (played so so softly). I knitted and learned sudoku and practiced yoga, looked up vacation spots, put in my grocery orders, and organized my playlists. I also could research and research and research. I had time to look up everything about every condition my patient had, and once I felt more comfortable with those, I moved on to looking up whatever other disease process and patient experience seemed interesting. I'd make myself a little curriculum and, after my patient was tucked in, and be like "tonight's class is vlogs about having a trach."

There were plenty of shifts where I bustled all fuckin night, and sometimes those shifts seemed to be in one endless hellish row, but often I had a lot of time to myself that I could spend however I wanted, as long as I was still in the room with the patient, able to meaningfully hear and see them, and keeping up with the night routine. I fucked around a lot and got paid for it because the job is to be available when needed, and you're not always needed. (I'm not saying slack off! I'm just saying even colicky babies sleep peacefully now and then.)

Anyway jesus christ that got away from me, but like please know that I was in your exact place, and I know how much it sucks and how crazy it makes you feel because I THOUGHT WE WERE SHORT ON NURSES DON'T ANY OF YOU FUCKERS NEED A NURSE, and know that all the other job hunts after this should and will be easier than this.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

With your Lu in healthcare au I have a question (or more 😬) about Wind! What’s been his worst and best experiences with working at the hospital? Were the others able to provide emotional support when he needed it?

Best is seeing people pull through when they seem like they’re not gonna make it. Worst is, well, uh, the opposite 😅 One of his worst experiences was a traumatic airway insertion - the patient’s airway was full of blood and already swelling, Wind couldn’t visualize the airway to intubate and they had to trach the person instead (ie they had to make a surgical airway). I wrote a snippet about it, I’ll have to hunt it down later to reblog!

[infectiouspiss]

i forgot that they just randomly trach the patient in episode one

[serpenttailedangel]

This bugs me so much

Why does he have a nasograstric tube?

Why did they give a nasogastric tube to a patient on a ventilator? He's in a perma coma. Did the place where he got treated just not, like, stock PEGs or something? Is getting a PEG in there once for a perma coma patient with a trach really less effort than keeping any NG tube in? With a trach!? They still have the NG tube in him in the not-flashback years later you're really telling me they kept to NG tubes in a perma coma trach patient for years!?

Are you trying to not cut holes in his body and that's why you used the stupider long term tube? Cause he already has a hole in his neck, doc!

[enkisstories]

The trial of General Hux - Part 2 of 2 (Chapter 10 of Mutiny on the Steadfast)

Part 1

In the infirmary things went by a different pace than in the outside world. None of  the hectic and confusion had a place here, but never mind that, people of course brought their memories and grievances with them. Those who had gotten seriously wounded during the mutiny or the subsequent rebel takeover were resting, sorted by their specific injuries instead of their allegiance. It remained to be seen if that was still manageable when the first First Order members would have recovered enough to start trouble. A trio of only lightly wounded members of the Resistance’ boarding party was sitting around a table, absorbed in a card game. They were waiting for the doctors to make their next round that would most likely clear them to leave and resume duties appropriate to their condition in the base.

Commander Trach woke up on his back. He had been briefly awake before, after arriving on the planet, and then passed out again while the medics had changed his blood-soaked bandages. How long he had slept the man didn’t know. He only felt a sting in his left arm, where an infusion needle had stuck not so long ago. So at minimum he’d been out for the time it had needed for the medicine to trickle into his body.

The first thing he beheld when he looked around were his tropical fish swimming around their tank. Trach blinked. This really was his own fish tank, that had gotten placed so prominently in the room, he realized. The sea anemones and corals were all in the specific places he had arranged them in. Someone must have had rescued the aquarium from the Steadfast - not the worst prize Trach could imagine to take from an enemy ship.

Having spent most of his life in space, Masir Trach had never developed a taste of planetbound life. He just knew that someone would open a window sooner or later to let the “good, fresh air” in. That would introduce all kinds of overwhelming sounds and scents to the room, rendering the protection a four-walled shelter offered moot. And over the course of the day the temperature would change drastically, perhaps the one aspect of planet life that irritated the man the most. There’d be wind or even rain and the air pressure would change hours before the onset of the downpour already, giving any sensible person a headache. Not to mention the gradual change in lighting from sunrise to sunset. The heck, scratch “gradual”, a single cloud could cause havoc with that! Normally Trach could deal with all of this when he was on a mission, even find it entertaining during shore leaves. But getting tossed into a natural environment without warning and against his will caused the officer to give himself over to his aversion to life in an ecosphere to the fullest degree. Everything about nature sucked, weather was not species-appropriate for the most advanced people in the galaxy and he didn’t want it, end of story!

Someone approached the patient. It was Poe Dameron and his intention seemed to be to hand Trach a pot filled with hot, steaming tea. Next to the rebel rolled his droid, the infamous BB-8. That one’s intention Trach couldn’t guess. Assisted by a medical droid, the man sat up and accepted the cup. Without taking his eyes off Dameron, and as appalled as if staring a Dianoga into its eye, Trach took a sip. What could his visitor want? He looked like Dameron, but Trach thought to know better. His General was dead; this here was once again a smelly, unpredictable rebel-scum.

“Trach? I never knew. Never knew that so many of you really believed in your propaganda. I thought… I mean, Finn told me about the stormtroopers, how they got brainwashed from their early childhood. But I believed all you officers to be in this for the power. Now it seems that you, too, are victims. If there’s a way to make you see… to wake as many as possible up, I’d do it. In an instant.”

All of a sudden the weather wasn’t the most irritating thing anymore. Dameron still spoke in the same manner as he had done on the Steadfast: brash in battle, but warm and encouraging in private. How could that be?

“Talk to me, Commander!” Poe pleaded, but the First Order officer only glared at him as one of the barbarians who were about to plunge the galaxy into chaos.

“The hell, Trach, of all the things you could have picked up from me and Hux, it had to be our stubbornness?”

At this point of the one-sided conversation someone screamed on top of their lungs. A male voice, Poe realized, and then he recognized it: Lieutenant Dopheld Mitaka of the bridge crew. Poe followed the sound with his eyes and saw the lieutenant grasp his bed sheet, ready to pull it over his head any moment. The man’s fingers were jittery, his whole body was shivering. What could have scared him this much?

WHOMP.

Poe looked up into the direction this new sound had come from. He spotted Eightball, the spherical interrogation droid, that had just hit the ceiling that, unfortunately for the droid, had cables running along it in this section. IT-08’s currently extended syringe poked deep into one, what resulted in a weak jolt. Trying to free himself by wiggling around, Eightball only managed to get caught even tighter in that technological spider web.

“I see”, Poe murmured.

Mitaka must have seen one of the infamous imperial torture droids close in on him… and he was currently a prisoner of the enemy… What was one to think in this situation, naturally?

Only Eightball’s job was not information gathering, but delivering medication to those who needed it according to their individual schedule. He was also constantly monitoring the patients’ condition and would raise the alarm should one try to leave the infirmary or engage in otherwise suspicious activity. In other words, the droid was living the best life he could imagine. Before the scream anyway, Mitaka’s fearful wail, that in turn had scared the droid into shooting up towards the ceiling.

“I guess that’s on me”, Poe confessed. “I vouched for IT-08 to get employed here. Because Hux said they serve as paramedics…”

“Have you ever noticed that General Hux is a tad bit less on the empathic side?” Trach sputtered. “Maybe what HE thinks is acceptable is a little non-standard?”

“Er, right. You’ve got a point. - Eightball, come down!”

In beeps the droid explained what was plain to see – that he was caught in the cable salad.

“I’ll fetch someone to help you”, Poe promised.

That someone was already on his way here and his name was Finn. While Rose was following Hux’ unique search tactics with the same fascination someone shooting a wildlife documentation might feel, Finn had listened to his common sense. Distressed about having been made into a First Order follower, Poe would most likely seek out First Order personnel. Not the likes of Kandia and Kornsenf in their cells, but the pilots and officers he had worked with after he had gotten turned. Most of those were in the base’s hospital at the moment, so that’s where Finn had went.

Poe grabbed his arm, pulled the friend close, quickly pressed a kiss on his cheek, then gestured towards the captured droid.

“Ever wanted to be try out Force telekinesis?”

“Guess what”, Finn replied with a grin, “I practiced on my own in our cell! But I had to be careful not to alert the guards to the full extent of my abilities, so I didn’t get anywhere. I have the feeling telekinesis is something I might be good at, though, seeing that it complements my combat training. A push in the right moment… Well, in this case  a pull, more like it.”

The force sensitive looked up at IT-08.

“Eightball, I’m going to grab you with the Force! If that scares you, go into standby for a spell!”

Finn waited a moment. He saw the lights on the droid dim one by one, until only the “unit activated” indicator was glowing white anymore. Then, like the Jedi of old, who had also used gestures to better focus on a task at hand, Finn stretched out both his hands towards the ceiling, first the physical ones, then the spiritual extensions. With the left hand Finn steadied Eightball, with the right hand he gently tucked at the cables until the droid was freed. But Finn wasn’t trained in the use of the Force yet, so his channeling of it had been less efficient than it could have been. After entangling the droid, his hands and arms felt strained. Finn couldn’t gently levitate the droid downwards as he had planned, but he could position himself where Eightball would land and catch him before he’d smash onto the floor.

Finn was holding Eightball safe and sound, when Rose and Hux entered the room through a door opposite the one Finn had taken. They saw Poe enthusiastically congratulate Finn to some feat – apparently he had levitated Eightball with the Force? Poe was full of awe of his partner, less so of Finn’s talent, but of the way he had calmed the droid down before starting the rescue. That was husband and father material right there!

“Grabbing is what’s difficult”, Finn stated. “Establishing the connection to anything requires faith in the Force actually existing and in my connection to it being real.”

Rey having healed Hux back to full had been a pretty big indicator to the Force being real, powerful and open to get called upon by those with an open mind and heart. Finn hadn’t been present at that scene, but the living evidence of it having happened had stood right next to him on the stage afterwards.

“After I touch something, moving it around can be as easy as if I held it with my physical hands”, Finn relayed his experience.

Can be, that was the key here. Today there had been no pressure. Had Finn failed, someone else would have come with a ladder and untied the droid. To reliably produce the same effect in a crisis, or move objects around tactically in combat would require actual training, something Finn was looking forward to.

For now he handed Eightball to Poe.

“Here. He’ll probably like waking up in someone’s arms.”

“Eightball – call to arms!”

At the verbal command the droid returned from standby. He fully turned around himself once, saw the Generals Dameron and Hux as well as Rose and Finn, who weren’t strangers by a long shot, either, and synchronized his position with Poe’s shoulder. Everything was well again.

“So, P…” Hux’ lips were closing in preparation to form the P-sound, but before they could produce it, he corrected himself: “So, Dameron. I expected you to be distressed to Exegol and back, but here you are, playing with my droid.”

Poe grinned.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Armitage.”

It was nice, indeed, Poe thought to himself. Not exactly the other’s presence in itself, but standing here while feeling all calm, with no more primal urges for prisoner mistreatment.

“Shall we take this double date to the cantina?” Poe asked. “The last I had was a sticky energy drink before going out to blast rebel-scum out of space.”

Rose opened her mouth, but before she could voice whatever concerns she might harbor, Hux nodded.

“Yes, let’s. I haven’t even started telling the imbeciles in there what I think of them!”

There they walked, the First Order deserter Finn, the (technically) defector from the New Republic to the Resistance Poe, the leaker-temporarily-traitor-de-facto-leader of the First Order Armitage and Rose, who had lost her home world and family to the First Order. To their feet BB-8 was prowling and around their heads IT-08 was skimming.

As executions went, Hux thought, this one was way more pleasant than his first one. That was the whole point: He was still thinking and as long as he kept at that, there was still a chance to escape his face for a second time.

[gardenstateofmind]

i can handle absolutely any body related functions so long as it's not from the mouth. idk why it makes me feel so ill. it's not even just vomit (though i very much am a sympathy puker) bc phlegm also nauseates me. i can handle mucus if it's coming from elsewhere, but being coughed up? i can't handle it.

[mrsballlegs]

Had the stuuuuupidest situation at work last night…. This patient with stage 4 cancer has been in and out of the icu for most of the last year family refuses to trach and refuses comfort care…. They finally convinced the family to do hospice, extubated him specifically to send him home w hospice, had him in the gurney when hospice was like oh you said NG tube? We thought you said g tube, we can’t take that! And family wants him to get tube feeding while on hospice so. Back in the hospital bed, extubated with unclear goals of care 🤧 at least I got through the night without reintubating….. barely….

[nursingevolution1]

How Pediatric Complex Care Makes a Difference in an RN Career

Pediatric complex care is medical attention that professionals offer patients with chronic and complex conditions. Young patients often transition from hospital to at-home care, and pediatric complex nurses play a significant role in this transition. So, if you’re aiming to further your RN career, read the article to learn how these complex care nurses contribute to a seamless transition!

Understanding the Role of Pediatric Complex Care Nurses

Pediatric complex care involves the round-the-clock care of a chronically ill young patient. These patients often have more than one existing medical condition professionals should tend to. Because of its complexity, professionals must possess the necessary skills, including:

Managing medical devices

Coordinating care

Understanding developmental milestones

One key difference between pediatric intense care and general pediatric care is the longevity of care. Complex care often involves long-term care for each patient, including supporting their families. The former, on the other hand, involves the constant use of medical machines and equipment due to chronic illnesses.

Ensuring a Smooth Transition from Hospital to Home

Families may struggle to transition their young patients from hospital to at-home care. Challenges may include handling medical equipment and offering 24/7 care, which can take an additional toll on parents’ physical and mental health.

Fortunately, pediatric intensive care nurses are here to help. They create detailed care plans, ensuring safe and seamless continuity between hospital and home-based care. These nurses also ensure that their patients continue to live comfortable lives despite their medical conditions.

The responsibilities of these nurses include weaning, decannulating, and discharging trached and mechanically ventilated patients. Furthermore, they ensure that they offer personalized care based on the patient’s current condition and developmental stage.

Building Trust and Providing Education to Families

It is essential to build trust between pediatric complex care nurses and families when transitioning from institution to at-home care. Healthcare professionals can do this by educating and empowering the family during this period.

Nurses do this by teaching parents and caregivers how to manage medication, safely use medical devices, and prepare for emergencies. Additionally, they equip parents with essential home care tips for fragile infants.

When it comes to cutting-edge, patient-centered care, prioritizing comfort and well-being, these professionals never disappoint. During the transition, they ensure that all needs are met and the process is seamless.

Enhancing Coordination with Multidisciplinary Care Teams

Pediatric intensive care nurses work closely with other healthcare professionals to curate personalized and comprehensive care plans. A few examples of other experts they work with include:

Physical therapists

Occupational therapists

Primary care physicians

This collaboration improves patient outcomes and provides a holistic approach to complex child care. Additionally, these teams work closely to develop goals and timelines. This allows them to evaluate the patient regularly based on his or her progress and ensure that they make the necessary adjustments for the best possible outcomes.

Furthermore, this is one of the most sought-after nursing career opportunities, making it ideal for professionals seeking to build strong teamwork and communication skills in the field.

Impact of RN Career Growth and Professional Development

Specializing in pediatric complex care can further multiple RN careers. In fact, it presents more opportunities. With the right workplace, nurses can expand their knowledge in the field. Institutions like Nursing Evolutions provide professionals with mentorship programs to improve their skills to further take on the following responsibilities:

Head-to-toe physical assessments

Tracheostomy care

Managing mechanical ventilation, including pressure and volume ventilation, intensive pulmonary treatments, and cough assist devices

Administering fluids and medications through various lines and tubes

Nutrition and hydration management

Medication administration, both scheduled and as needed

Effective communication with patients, family, and healthcare professionals 

That said, practicing in this field can continuously build one’s leadership skills, case management, and advocacy. The Pediatric Complex Care Association’s advocacy includes sharing the expertise and challenges of member organizations with legislators, regulators, and healthcare agencies to build solutions and support for the best care possible.

Addressing Emotional Support and Mental Health for Families

Due to the extremity of their conditions, pediatric complex care can take a toll on patients’ families. The management at home can be taxing and impact their physical and mental health.

Fully aware of these effects, pediatric intensive care nurses offer families compassion, especially during transition. These professionals follow literature-based practices to ensure that every patient, including their families, is comfortable and has a good quality of life.

These nurses provide families with emotional support, reassurance, and mental health resources. This can also be rewarding for RNs, as they make a difference not only in physical health but also in the overall well-being of affected families.

Further Your RN Career at Nursing Evolutions!

Nurses in pediatric complex care facilitate successful transitions from hospital to at-home care in multiple ways. By taking charge of these complex cases, they impact patient outcomes and their growth in the profession.

So, RNs who want to make an impact in young patients’ lives should consider specializing in this field. In this line of work, you get to touch the lives of young children and their families. For more information, you can check out our pediatric nursing careers at Nursing Evolutions today.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

If you’re looking to specialize in complex pediatric care, here are a few questions you might have.

What is pediatric complex care?

It is a specialized healthcare field where professionals care for chronically ill children. These patients are often admitted to intensive care units or require round-the-clock at-home care.

What is the role of a complex care nurse?

The responsibilities of complex care nurses include seeing patients daily and ensuring all their medical needs are met. 

[smalife1234]

“I didn't know if I'd be here today.”

“I didn't know I would be here tomorrow.”

“I Didn't know if I would make it through the night.”

“I didn't know the thing I loved would paralyze me”

“I didn't know the unknown”

In fact, nobody knows because it was my story...

I'm big Donny. I'm supposed to be a former wrestler and a former nurse. Everything I've done till now is gone...

That is what I said the minute I woke up.

You might've read the beginning of that and went why? Well, I will tell you the story on the morning of October 24th, 2023 I went to work expecting a regular day, however something so tiny that was behind me would change my life forever, I was a former wrestler and a former nurse on this morning of October 24th, 2023 I would be walking a patient down a hospital corridor and as I was strolling the patient I had felt faint and hit my neck on a metal cart one of which I didn't know was behind me, my former nurse diana was there and watched me fall limp as I hit the ground, in the moment of stopped time my breathing stopped, my shaking hands fell limp my strength had plummeted to nothingness, the loudness grew quiet the laughter turned to turned stunned looks across the room and the clutter in my head was no longer there... I was dead. I was rushed to the hospital via ambulance they had to trach me in the ambulance just to keep me alive, at the hospital I was in a neck brace, on a gurney, and sedated to the point I couldn't even wake up, as hours, days and weeks passed I was still in a coma by then they had figured out that I had a spinal cord injury on my C1 - C2 vertebrae (completely damaged)

One of which was the worst ones to get, It was like my whole life had changed in one hit of the back of the neck, it was the scariest most frustrating part of my life, grappling with life every time they tried and wake me, my nurse Daina, my siblings all praying for me and holding off of signing the paper as long as they could, I soon got moved to another ICU closer to my friends on December 4th by then I had been in a coma for 41 days over a month. My friends were all there to support me through this rough journey, it was crazy how many tubes I was hooked to and I couldn't say anything, soon shortly after 58 days in a coma and trached I was finally able to be unsedated and awake unfortunately I had to have a seven-hour surgery the minute I woke up because I needed a pacemaker as keeping a tracheostomy in me wouldn't be the best decision since I was struggling alone on the ventilator.

After that scary operation I had luckily survived it and was defeating most odds of a C1 - C2 complete Quadriplegic, today I tell you all of this using my eyes and a quad stick, today I hit 1 year, yes it has been a year since my life had changed forever, is it crazy to me writing the fact that I hit 1 year as a Quaderplgic yet it will absolutely always shock me on how far I've come with the incredible support of my friends and my family, and thank you all for making these past 365 days, 8760 hours and 525,600 minutes amazing, every last minute, every last hour, every last day has been amazing and I cannot thank you all enough. Those questions and those thoughts have all changed.

“I am so happy I am here today”

“I am so happy I am here tomorrow”

“I have the support to make it through tonight”

“I can do the things I love while being paralyzed”

“While I may not know the full unknown or the full path I do know what I had not known before”

In Fact, Everyone knows my story now...

I'm Donny everything that I have done and now has made me who I am today and made me recognized.

This is what I say the minute I have an opportunity to tell my story.

I am Donny; I am strong, powerful, and courageous. I will get through this, and nothing will stop me; I'm me… and I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read this post. It means a lot of one more pair of eyes sees my story.

Video desc #1: Donny is seen in the ICU with many tubes in him. Nurse Dana has taken a secret video of her saying the word "picture."

Img desc #2: shows Donny smiling white in a tuxedo with a black blazer and white long-sleeved buttoned-up shirt.

Img desc #3: Donny is seen looking in the distance while wearing a white short-sleeved buttoned shirt with flamingos and various other designs on his shirt 🦩

Img desc #4: shows Donny with a group of people while wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and black shorts. He is seen smiling!

Img desc #5: shows Donny in the ICU while laying in bed with many tubes in him there is a red light overcasting him.

Img desc #6: shows Donny in the ICU slightly turned with many tubes in him.

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Evolution and Current Landscape of Home Healthcare in the United States

History and Emergence of U.S. Home Healthcare Home healthcare in the United States has seen tremendous growth over the past few decades. The concept of providing medical care to patients in the comfort of their own home first started gaining traction in the 1950s. During this time, visiting nurse associations began offering basic medical services like wound care, medication administration, and assisting with activities of daily living to patients who were unable to regularly visit a medical facility. However, it wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that home healthcare began expanding into more complex medical care with the arrival of new technologies. Advances in portable medical equipment allowed for services like intravenous therapy, ventilator care, and rehabilitative therapies to be provided at home. The 1980s saw two major policy changes that further accelerated the growth of U.S. Home Healthcare. First, Medicare began covering home healthcare with the establishment of the Medicare home health benefit in 1980. This opened up homecare access to millions of elderly Americans for the first time. Second, the rise of managed care and healthcare cost containment initiatives prompted hospitals and insurers to shift many services from expensive inpatient settings to lower-cost homecare settings. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of Medicare-certified home health agencies grew from fewer than 1,000 to over 8,000 nationwide. Current State of the U.S. Home Healthcare Today, home healthcare has become a major component of the U.S. healthcare system. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that home health visits have increased over 600% since 1990 and reached nearly 125 million annual visits for 2018. Home health patients are also accessing more complex medical care that was unthinkable decades ago - including intravenous antibiotic therapy, chemotherapy, wound vacuum therapy, tracheostomy care, and more. The home healthcare industry is comprised of two major sectors - U.S. Home Healthcare agencies and private duty agencies. Medicare-certified home health agencies provide skilled nursing, therapies, social services, and personal care under the Medicare home health benefit on a part-time intermittent basis. Private duty agencies employ nurses, therapists, and home health aides to provide longer term continuous or live-in care paid for by private long-term care insurance, Medicaid programs, or private pay clients. Both industries jointly employ over 3 million home healthcare workers nationwide, representing one of the fastest growing occupational sectors. Key U.S. Home Healthcare  Services Though home healthcare agencies and private providers offer a wide variety of medical, rehabilitative and personal care services, some of the most common include: Skilled Nursing Care - Includes wound/dressing changes, medication management, IV therapies, trach/vent care, and more performed by registered nurses. Get more insights on U.S. Home Healthcare

Alice Mutum is a seasoned senior content editor at Coherent Market Insights, leveraging extensive expertise gained from her previous role as a content writer. With seven years in content development, Alice masterfully employs SEO best practices and cutting-edge digital marketing strategies to craft high-ranking, impactful content. As an editor, she meticulously ensures flawless grammar and punctuation, precise data accuracy, and perfect alignment with audience needs in every research report. Alice's dedication to excellence and her strategic approach to content make her an invaluable asset in the world of market insights.

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