In recent years, hormone replacement therapy has become a controversial issue. When prescribing therapies, advanced practice nurses must weigh the strengths and limitations of the prescribed supplemental hormones. If advanced practice nurses determine that the limitations outweigh the strengths, then they might suggest alternative treatment options such as herbs or other natural remedies, changes in diet, and increase in exercise.

Consider the following scenario:

• As an advanced practice nurse at a community health clinic, you often treat female (and sometimes male patients) with hormone deficiencies. One of your patients requests that you prescribe supplemental hormones. This poses the questions: How will you determine what kind of treatment to suggest? What patient factors should you consider? Are supplemental hormones the best option for the patient, or would they benefit from alternative treatments?

To prepare:

• Review Chapter 56 of the Arcangelo and Peterson text, as well as the Holloway and Makinen and Huhtaniemi articles in the Learning Resources.
• Review the provided scenario and reflect on whether or not you would support hormone replacement therapy.
• Locate and review additional articles about research on hormone replacement therapy for women and/or men. Consider the strengths and limitations of hormone replacement therapy.
• Based on your research of the strengths and limitations, again reflect on whether or not you would support hormone replacement therapy.
• Consider whether you would prescribe supplemental hormones or recommend alternative treatments to patients with hormone deficiencies.

With these thoughts in mind:

By Day 3

Post a description of the strengths and limitations of hormone replacement therapy. Based on these strengths and limitations, explain why you would or why you would not support hormone replacement therapy. Explain whether you would prescribe supplemental hormones or recommend alternative treatments to patients with hormone deficiencies and why.

Eugenia Uzoechi  
1 posts
Re: Topic 5 DQ 2
Technology and CLABSIs reductionAlthough sophisticated progress has been made in several areas, central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) remain a national healthcare problem of crisis proportions. The stakes for healthcare institutions that have not effectively addressed CLABSIs continue to mount (Pageler et al., 2014). Also, the financial stakes for healthcare institutions with CLABSI problems have risen. With the direction from the Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has curbed reimbursing hospitals for hospital-associated conditions, particularly the ones considered preventable. Among the designated preventable conditions is CLABSIs. The above sends a strong message to facilities to implement aggressive CLABSI minimization programs. Among the programs that can be implemented are technological programs (Pageler et al., 2014).An example of a technological program that can be used to address the issue of CLABSIs is a unit-wide patient safety and quality dashboard. This type of technology helps users to measure the outcome metrics such as CLABSI rate, central line utilization and excess cost in relation to the intervention metrics such as hand hygiene and central line maintenance bundle compliance (Field, Fong & Shade, 2018). At the same time, this technology enables users to identify the hospital care location where patients are at increased risk of developing CLABSI. Moreover, it provides infection prevention surveillance teams with automated work lists, and it works by giving the surveillance team the ability to evaluate cases flagged as at-risk, along with supporting clinical details, to make the final determination of the CLABSI case (Field, Fong & Shade, 2018).I plan to use a unit-wide patient safety and quality dashboard because it will provide mw with the ability to rapidly find, assess and document CLABSI cases, efficiently review submission data and CLABSI rates, and easily identify trends in performance and CLABSI prevention bundle compliance. At the same time, this type of technology will help me understand CLABSI risk based on device utilization and bundle compliance a care location to identify and prioritize improvement interventions, and drill down to the facility, unit, service, or patient level to analyze performance, provide feedback, and support measurement of performance improvement interventions.ReferencesField, M., Fong, K., & Shade, C. (2018). Use of Electronic Visibility Boards to Improve Patient Care Quality, Safety, and Flow on Inpatient Pediatric Acute Care Units. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 41, 69-76.Pageler, N. M., Longhurst, C. A., Wood, M., Cornfield, D. N., Suermondt, J., Sharek, P. J., & Franzon, D. (2014). Use of electronic medical record–enhanced checklist and electronic dashboard to decrease CLABSIs. Pediatrics, 133(3), e738-e746.