Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses: Chief Complaints with High Risk Presentations

by Lynn Sayre Visser MSN, RN, PHN, CEN, CPEN, FAEN, Anna Sivo Montejano DNP, RN, PHN, CEN

Overview

From the award-winning authors of Fast Facts for the Triage Nurse!

The vital information you need to quickly identify acutely ill or injured patients.

Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses: Chief Complaints With High-Risk Presentations is the first pocket-sized clinical manual focusing on patient-driven chief complaints. Designed to assist in rapidly recognizing potential life-threatening or life-altering conditions, this guide can be used in a variety of healthcare settings.

Content covers each body system and its most common chief complaints along with first-line questions, assessments, and interventions to prompt the user. Red flag findings, easily identified by the flag icon, denote critical signs and symptoms, while a light bulb icon helps the user locate key tips.

The guide includes evidence-based practice guidelines, reference tables, and checklists for at-a-glance retrieval of information. Most chapters contain space for taking notes, inscribing important phone numbers, or pasting facility specific policies and procedures.

Key Features:

• Common chief complaints with essential tips
• Unique patient presentations
• Triage processes, clinical red flags, screening tools
• Pediatric and older adult considerations
• Disaster response
• Active shooter or violent situation action steps

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826196378
Publisher:	Springer Publishing Company
Publication date:	07/30/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	230
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Lynn Sayre Visser, MSN, RN, PHN, CEN, CPEN, FAEN has devoted her 28 year career to emergency nursing, triage education, mentoring others, and writing about topics that impact nursing. Her career has been complemented by experience in prehospital care, ICUs, post-anesthesia care units, and as an organ procurement coordinator. Her passion for quality patient care led her to play instrumental roles in the implementation of a provider in triage, rapid triage assessment, and immediate bedding processes along with formalized triage education in multiple facilities. She is a change-agent and philanthropist and has been published in a variety of arenas. She is the co-author of Fast Facts for the Triage Nurse: An Orientation and Care Guide, Essentials for the Triage Nurse, Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses, and Rapid Access Guide for Pediatric Emergency Nursing. Her work has been recognized with two American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards, the 2019 Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) Media Award, the 2021 ENA Team Award, as well as the 2019 Sigma Theta Tau Edith Moore Copeland Founders Award for excellence in creativity. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Nursing with an emphasis in education and a double Bachelor of Science degree in nursing and exercise physiology.

Anna Sivo Montejano, DNP, RN, PHN, CEN, has over three decades of experience in emergency nursing and triage education. She has taught nursing theory and aided the professional development of nurses as a preceptor, mentor, and clinical instructor. She has been a certified emergency nurse for more than 30 years. Her ED contributions include work as a staff nurse, primary preceptor, and assistant nurse manager, as well as in educational development. Dr. Montejano has worked to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care through projects such as the change process of rapid medical screenings and rapid triage assessments; as a project manager for a major ED expansion; and as an advanced cardiac life support instructor. She authored Fast Facts for the Triage Nurse: An Orientation and Care Guide in a Nutshell, which won third place in the 2015 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards in the critical care/emergency category, the Emergency Nursing Association, Media award in 2019, and the Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI) Nurse Educator of the Year. This book has since become available in the United Kingdom under the title Essentials for the Triage Nurse: An Orientation and Care Guide. She has her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from California State University, Northern Consortium (Fresno and San Jose State University), her Master's Degree in Nursing with a focus on education, and her Bachelor of Science degree.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Contributors and Reviewers

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

1. Triage Down and Dirty

2. The Secrets to Using This Guide

3. Screening Tools and Checklists

4. Pediatric Considerations

5. Older Adult Considerations

6. Waiting Room Issues

7. Legal Issues

Introduction to High-Risk Presentations

8. Respiratory Emergencies

9. Cardiac Emergencies

10. Neurologic Emergencies

11. Abdominal Emergencies

12. Obstetric Emergencies

13. Gynecologic Emergencies

14. Male Reproductive Emergencies

15. Behavioral Health Emergencies

16. Toxicology Emergencies

17. Eye Emergencies

18. Ear, Nose, and Throat Emergencies

19. Musculoskeletal Emergencies

20. Bite and Sting Emergencies

21. Infectious Disease Emergencies

22. Trauma Emergencies

23. Burn Emergencies

24. Unique Situation Emergencies

25. Active Shooter and/or Active Violence

26. Emergency Management During a Disaster

References

Additional Reading

Index

Editorial Reviews

As a seasoned nurse with experience in the triage arena, I can unequivocally say that the Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses is well-written, beautifully designed, comprehensive, convenient to use, and fully evidence-based. Triage sits at the gateway to urgent and emergent care, and this guide can alleviate the bottlenecks, confusions, and missteps that weaken the triage process, endanger patients, and otherwise throw a wrench in what should be a well-oiled assessment machine. The arrangement by body systems increases the guide’s usefulness in chaotic situations, and the red flag warnings are highlights that any triage nurse would be prudent to make note of and memorize. From comprehensive behavioral health assessment to life-threatening cardiac or respiratory emergencies, the Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses offers the evidence-based information for triage and emergency nurses who want to be at the top of their game.

Nurse Career Coach, Podcaster, Author, Speaker - Keith Carlson

"...Every nurse should have access to this wonderfully easy to use guide. It encompasses all situations in a clear and straightforward manner."

NY Times Best Selling Author - Echo Heron

Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses focuses on patients that require immediate intervention. This book is indeed a "book of brains" and a "collection of wisdom" all rolled up in a compact size book! Concise triage information is easy to read and zooms in on the most important points. It is a must for every nurse that is met with emergencies.

Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio

Reviewer: Anna L. Jarrett, PhD, ACNP, FNP - BC(University of Arkansas)
Description: This is a pocket-sized clinical manual for triage nurses designed to help quickly identify and rank the risk of emergent conditions. It includes sketches, tables, and pathways to use when assessing and providing care for patients in the emergency department. It does not include extraneous information that providers in emergency departments may not have time to read during a high-risk patient presentation.
Purpose: The authors dedicate the book "to the frontline healthcare providers who selflessly and fearlessly care for patients during their most vulnerable moments... and to every patient that we learned from and grew from." They state the purpose is to help healthcare providers faced with determining the urgency of a patient's condition and preventing those misses or near misses.
Audience: The book is intended for emergency department/urgent care/clinic nurses, paramedics, and EMTs. However, the book would be useful for all ED personnel including medical residents and APRNs. The authors are clinical experts in this area.
Features: After the first seven chapters on triage, screening tools, specialty population considerations, waiting room issues, and legalities of emergency nursing, the next group of chapters (8-23) cover common high-risk emergencies. The last three chapters cover unique situations such as active shooter, violence, and emergency management during disasters. The best aspect of this book is its size - it's actually pocket-sized and the spiral binding makes it easy to turn to a section and stay open. The tables and graphs make it easy to locate information quickly. The only possible shortcoming is that by adding current (2018) infant and childhood immunization schedules could result in portions of the book becoming outdated quickly.
Assessment: I really like this book! It economical enough to give as a gift, keep in one's locker, or donate to new emergency nurses. The notes sections allow personalization. This guide compares favorably to A Nurse's Survival Guide to Acute Medical Emergencies, 3rd edition, Harrison and Daly, (Elsevier, 2011); Telephone Triage Protocols for Nurses, 5th edition, Briggs (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2014), and Emergency and Critical Care Pocket Guide, 8th edition, Derr et al. (Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017).

Doody's Review Service