An evaluation of a Clinical Facilitator in ICU

Backround – The Galway Clinic has busy 8 bedded Intensive Care Unit with 17.3 staff nurses, 2 ward managers, and one healthcare assistant. This unit caters for many specialities 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All medical... [ view full abstract ]

Backround – The Galway Clinic has busy 8 bedded Intensive Care Unit with 17.3 staff nurses, 2 ward managers, and one healthcare assistant. This unit caters for many specialities 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All medical and nursing records were done on paper until the changeover to a paperless system in 2012.
Creation of an ICU facilitator position in 2011 assisted the ICU managers in two separate ways. A) Supporting the unit changeover to a paperless system and B) growing and facilitating the educational environment within the ICU.
The impact of this position to the unit has greatly improved the service in the following ways:
• Structured orientation and education of all new and existing nursing staff in the ICU including undergraduate and post graduate students.
• Assisting all post graduate diploma student s within the ICU with the implementation of the required project improvement for higher diploma. Thus improving the service provided for service users. Examples of this include:
-Reduction of pt. blood waste via the introduction of a new arterial line set
-Implementation of intra abdominal pressure monitoring
-Changeover from Aquarius dialysis to Prismaflex with the intention of using citrate in 2015
-Plans to upgrade non invasive oxygen delivery system to Airvo2
-Implementation of dental sets into the ICU to assist staff with mouth care on all patients
-Implementation of bundles such as sepsis bundle, VAP bundle etc. and capturing of this data on the medical record.

• In association with the above the facilitator position configured and supported the electronic medical and nursing charting via implementation of ICIP, making the record much more streamlined to the ICU patient when required.