A single clinical decision support tool designed for Australian and New Zealand nurses

A nurse’s role is complex as it continues to expand and change in response to modern healthcare demands. However, the qualities that make the most difference to patients — confidence, competence, and compassion — remain the same.

Busy schedules and sheer lack of time also challenge nurses to manage their patient care and documentation activities efficiently.

Hospitals often do not have the resources or time to regularly develop new procedures and update existing procedures, which means nurses may not have access to the latest evidence to inform their practice and clinical care.

Over the past two years, nurses have faced tremendous challenges which continue to impact their physical and mental health. It’s true that rates of job dissatisfaction increased among nurses during COVID-19, but it also existed well before the pandemic. As a result, some nurses have simply had enough.

Data from surveys collected in March 2021 show burnout and stress were prevalent among half of respondents. Additionally, 21% of those surveyed reported going to work angry. In practice environments where PPE was in short supply, 48% reported that they were considering leaving healthcare altogether.

While some people view this as a crisis, others see opportunities to rise to new challenges. Senior nursing leaders often describe the innovation nurses have used in caring for COVID-19 patients. But union members tell a different story, noting that many nurses are discouraged and are not receiving support from higher levels of management.

It’s estimated that approximately 5% of hospital nurses left their positions since the pandemic began. This has important implications for hospital administrators and others, since 56% of hospitals surveyed before the pandemic reported insufficient nursing staff to provide safe patient care.

It’s anticipated that the nursing workforce will grow by 9% to 3,356,800 in the year 2030. And although enrolment in BSN programs increased by 5.1% in 2019, there still aren’t enough nurses to meet the growing demand. According to a survey by the Association of Colleges of Nursing, over 80,000 qualified BSN applicants have been turned away from nursing school due to budgetary constraints, lack of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, and clinical instructors.

Having quick access to current evidence-based knowledge allows nurses to make well-informed decisions and provide safer and consistent care at the bedside.

Lippincott Advisor now offers an Australian and New Zealand adaptation that provides a single source for immediate, evidence-based, online nursing clinical-decision support that:

• Delivers 24/7 access at the point-of-care for geographically specific diseases, incidences, diagnostic tests, medication, nursing considerations, and resources.
• Promotes a consistent standard of care with quick access to localised drug treatments and consumer information aligned with the Australian and New Zealand Drug Handbook and nursing scopes of practice.
• Empowers nurses with the knowledge and confidence to make clinical decisions and facilitate delivery of care for culturally diverse populations to reduce misdiagnosis, medication errors, and incorrect treatment.
   

Lippincott Advisor ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) is an evidence-based, online clinical decision support tool for use at the point-of-care across five key areas:

• Clinical diagnosis and treatment
• Care planning
• Patient teaching handouts
• Patient teaching navigator
• Clinical leadership, development and advancement.
   

Lippincott Advisor ANZ supports nurses to really understand the whole patient situation from disease state, through care to that patient and how to improve those outcomes, with access to more than 1,800 synthesised monographs, drug information and patient handouts.

Benefits for hospitals and nurses include:

• Provides immediate, evidence-based clinical decision support at the point-of-care
• Eliminates wasted time from unreliable internet searches
• Supports effective care transitions, increasing patient safety
• Reduces hospital re-admissions with robust patient-teaching resources
• Quality indicators and quality improvement strategies.
   

Lippincott Advisor ANZ helps improve team performance, increase clinical knowledge and support competency development to decrease variability of care and improve patient outcomes.

In addition, Lippincott® Procedures Australia completes Lippincott’s total nursing solution as a point-of-care guide that saves nurses time and provides safer, consistent and more effective care.

It provides real-time access to step-by-step guides for up to 450 evidence-based procedures and skills in more specialties than any other procedures and skills-based resource currently available.

The procedure guide reflects Australia’s nursing protocols, regulations, terminology, drug names, and has been mapped to the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards which provide a nationally consistent statement of the level of care consumers can expect from health service organisations.

Lippincott Procedures Australia offers a single trusted resource to guide care management decisions with best practices and protocols, eliminating the care variability that can happen when clinicians work with multiple reference tools that may not offer standardised guidance.

Benefits for hospitals and nurses include:

• Easy online access and seamless technology integration
• Eliminate time wasted on unreliable internet searches or tracking down protocols
• Save valuable time spent creating, writing, reviewing, and tracking all procedures
• Promote more effective inter-collaborative professional practice
• Empower clinicians with the knowledge and confidence to make informed clinical decisions
• Improve patient outcomes, reduce errors, and promote consistent, standardised care across your hospital
• Maintain compliance with the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards
• Evaluate staff competency and adherence to standards
• Promote effective and consistent communication about patient safety and quality care
• Increase the amount of time devoted to delivering direct patient care
   

Wolters Kluwer Health partnered with the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) to align Lippincott Procedures with clinical workflows and practice patterns among Australia’s 377,000 nurses and midwives practising in more than 1,330 private and public hospitals.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/dusanpetkovic1