Every good nurse knows that the job involves much more than simply treating the patient’s current illness or injury. Instead, nurses should try to anticipate potential complications that could arise for their patients and implement measures to prevent them from happening.

CPR, ACLS, NRP, PAL. As a nurse, you are likely familiar with some, if not all, of these acronyms. Early in your career, you were taught the skills to resuscitate a patient in cardiac or respiratory arrest. Every few years, you attend a class to review and renew your certification.

No matter how many times you’ve performed portable suctioning procedures on patients, there will always be potential risks that could lead to failure and life-threatening complications. If equipped with the right preventative tools and resources, however, you will be able to respond quickly and effectively to a failed suctioning attempt, and ultimately, avoid causing more harm to your patient during the process. 

Users of battery powered portable suction devices often comment that it “sucks”. This can be interpreted two ways–either negatively or positively. When the negative sentiment applies, there’s no need to despair or throw the unit across the room

The majority of portable suction devices are powered by sealed lead acid batteries. While this type of battery uses stable and reliable chemistry, it can lose capacity over time and require replacement. When buying a replacement battery for your portable suction device, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Hospital disaster preparedness is so much more than simply writing out a series of steps to be taken in an emergency situation. It’s not something to be done once and then forgotten until needed. Instead, once the plan is created, it should be periodically evaluated, tested, and updated to fill any gaps. We recommend examining your plan at least once every two years.

There are a few different ways that your hospital can audit its plan. These audit methods have varying levels of complexity, but all of them will serve to strengthen your hospital’s current disaster preparedness plan.

Preparing your hospital to handle a disaster is far from a simple process. Not only are there a number of types of disasters that can occur, the coordination of many different departments and disciplines is required.

You’re at home during a thunderstorm, the power cuts out, you search for a flashlight — and the batteries are dead. Plenty of us have been there.

Emergency preparedness is a critical aspect of the job for every medical professional, especially first responders. You’ll be working with people at some of the most difficult times of their lives, often in the wake of immense tragedy or a sudden disaster. Emergency preparedness should guide your work. 

Making sure you’re prepared for emergencies is not something you do once; it’s an ongoing undertaking that you must continually revisit in training, in your work with other agencies, and on your own. Preparedness saves lives.

September is National Preparedness Month, and there is no better time to put a disaster preparedness plan in place for your hospital. 

With a well-considered plan, you will be able to tackle problems before they even strike. And although creating a preparedness plan may seem overwhelming, with the right tools and resources, you’ll be able to quickly develop a much clearer understanding of the dangers that can threaten your facility during a crisis.