Revista de Práticas Avançadas em Enfermagem

Team-based care is paramount to meet the mission of the American College of Cardiology which is to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health. Advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) are integral to this team. Although the recent ACC 2015 health policy statement on cardiovascular team-based care address contributions of all members of the team, further information that defines APRNs, their contributions to the cardiovascular team and barriers to practice are needed. Therefore, the purpose of this manuscript is to further explain the role of the APRN as a member of the cardiovascular team with a focus on the certified nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist within the United States.

Background: Nurses can achieve competence in performing Folliculometry (FM) during ovarian stimulation cycles (OSC) within a reasonable timeframe. However limited information is available regarding the difference in the folliculometry performance between nurses and physicians in Arab countries especially in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the agreement of the Folliculometry Scans (FS) performed by trained nurses compared to infertility clinicians.
Design: A descriptive comparative prospective design was used. Methods: The study was conducted in the Obstetrics and Gynecology/Ultrasongraphy Unit at King Fahd Hospital of the University. A total of 346 ultrasound scans were performed for 104 eligible infertile consecutive patients by 6 postgraduates OBGYN nurses and 6 infertility clinicians. The nurse had hands on training given by expert infertility consultants for 8 sessions, 2 hours per each before she could independently perform the scans. Two tools were used for data collection, a checklist observation sheet to assess the performance of the nurses before starting the study, and the 2nd tool was the observation of follicular Scan (FS) findings of all raters.
Results: Almost perfect agreement was observed between both raters regarding all FS quantitative and qualitative uterine and ovarian values at different times of menstrual cycle. Conclusion: With appropriate training and supervision, the nurse can perform FS and interpret the quantitative and qualitative findings with high level of agreement and accuracy similar to that obtained by infertility clinicians.

Objective: The study was designed to evaluate the level of drug information skills for pharmaicst in the Non-to identify the participants’ preferences for drug information resources.

Background: The ability of utilizing proper information is one of the essential clinical skills required by pharmacists to fulfill pharmacist’s role as the primary source of drug knowledge. However, pharmacists are facing with the imminent challenge of utilizing proper information as to the increasing number of information. Howard University provides a drug information session to the Non-Traditional Doctor of Pharmacy students to enhance the student’s drug information skills. A survey consisting of 18-questionnaires has been distributed to the participants (n=18) to assess the participant’s utilization skill and the preference on each resource. Descriptive statistics and chisquare analysis was done using IBM SPSS 23.

Results: General search engines (55.6%) was the most preferred tool for their drug information search activities, and among the search engines 72% of the group frequently used Google for drug information inquiries. However, only 17% of the participants responded always cross-checked with other resources, and 22% always verified the authenticity of the website. On contrary to the findings, the level of confidence was notably high on their drug information skill (72%), and on the accuracy of obtained information (100%).

Conclusion: The observation from the study suggests that pharmacists should be more aware of the possibilities of risking the client’s safety while using Google or other search engines whose information may often not most current and accurate.