Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) play a critical role in ensuring the implementation of high-quality evidence based care, improved patient outcomes, and reduced health care delivery costs. Professional certification is one way we distinguish our unique contributions and advanced practice nursing expertise from other advanced practice roles. This first edition of the book represents a compilation of Clinical Nurse Specialist practice knowledge contributed by respected clinicians from across the nation for certification examination preparation. The book incorporates content from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist (AGCNS) Population Focused Competencies and the American Association of Critical Care Nurses Scope and Standards for CNS Practice. It begins with an introduction to the current AGCNS examination options, test plans and processes, as well as test taking strategies for success. The remainder of the book organizes test plan subject matter according to the three spheres of impact of CNS practice. The book includes twelve chapters presenting the overview, pathophysiology, etiology, assessment, diagnosis, treatment/management, and related pharmacology content according to each body system. It addresses the nurse and nursing practice sphere of impact. Relevant content includes age-related response to illness and adult-gerontology population specific practice standards for care and advocacy of the older adult. Emphasis is placed upon culturally competent care and safe care transitions. Nursing practice content includes consultation, collaboration, education, mentoring and communication skills. Nurse and nursing practice advocacy topics review public policy, professional practice issues, and ethical concerns. The book covers systems and systems leadership competencies of the CNS. Relevant content involves quality improvement principles, safety initiatives, financial stewardship, organizational level program development and systems change. Clinical inquiry subject matter covers evidence- based practice, research methodology, and skills for dissemination of CNS work.

Pediatric healthcare experts agree that the healthcare needs of children are vastly different from those of adults. This book delivers the specialized knowledge and skills needed to accurately assess children during health and illness. Comprehensive and detailed, it emphasizes the unique anatomic and physiologic differences among infants, children, and adults. The third edition features updated clinical practice guidelines, clinical decision-making, formulating differential diagnoses, and evidence-based practice. It newly addresses toxic stress and trauma-informed care and child witnesses to violent acts. Additionally, the book provides several new features facilitating quick access to key information along with new instructor and student resources. It focuses exclusively on the health history and assessment of infants, children, and adolescents and describes the unique anatomic and physiologic differences among infants, children, and adults. The book then provides comprehensive and in-depth information for APN students and new practitioners and addresses family, developmental, nutritional, and child mistreatment assessment. It also includes clinical practice guidelines for common medical conditions and incorporates up-to-date screening and health promotion guidelines. The book is divided into four units. Unit I, “The Foundations of Child Health Assessment”, comprises five chapters that provide readers with the foundational approach to health assessment of the pediatric patient. Unit II, “The Pediatric History and Physical Examination”, focuses on obtaining subjective and objective data specific to the child health examination. Unit III, “Assessment of Child Mental Health and Welfare”, includes two chapters focusing on psychosocial issues. Unit IV, “Synthesizing the Components of the Pediatric Health Assessment”, integrates the knowledge gained from all previous chapters in the text, and using this knowledge in an organized manner to conduct a full, age-appropriate, head-to-toe pediatric health examination. The unit IV also describes the clinical reasoning process for the pediatric healthcare provider.

This book updates current trends in practice and reviews the origins, standards, and competencies of the advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) in the United States. It discusses APRN roles within a nursing context, identifies organizational roles for APRNs, and examines ethics in guiding APRN clinical decision making. The book is organized into three parts comprising 16 chapters. It examines and addresses all four APRN roles. The book reviews useful tools in advanced clinical decision making, practice issues (regulation, certification prescriptive authority, credentialing, and liability), and the exploration of employment opportunities and strategies. It explores the role of the APRN in the team’s formation and leadership. The chapter discusses the composition of interprofessional teams that will include a variety of healthcare providers. It challenges APRNs to assume more prominent leadership roles in healthcare delivery systems. The book emphasizes the importance of leadership competencies necessary for the delivery of quality care, evidence-based practice, and patient safety. Different leadership development models and curricula related to leadership in master’s and doctor of nursing practice (DNP) programs are considered. The book describes the multifaceted roles of APRNs internationally. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has placed APRNs on the front lines of healthcare reform. The book reviews the critical events that have sculpted the APRN policy role in influencing and creating legislation and discusses how to become an engaged citizen in directing change. It discusses health information technology competencies for nurses and APRNs, as well as common information management resources that APRNs are using or likely to encounter in the near future. The book explores the multiple modalities that are incorporated into the scholarship of practice, such as sharing tricks of the trade, completing quality improvement projects, collaborating with nursing researchers, and being an active member in professional organizations.

Psychiatric-mental health advanced practice registered nurses (PMH-APRNs) are like water: they are flexible, they are fluid, and they go where they are needed. Deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients resulted in not only more community-based treatment, but also new and expanded outpatient roles for psychiatric nurses. The third edition of Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing meets the practice standards developed by the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, the International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses, and the American Nurses Association, which require all PMH-APRNs to have skills in psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and holistic assessment. Each chapter reflects not only state-of-the-art knowledge, but decades of clinical wisdom. The book is divided into five sections: Section I provides an overview of the theoretical and evidence base for practice and an exploration of the concept of shared decision-making and reaching concordance between clinicians and clients. Section II explores the foundations necessary for the practitioner to implement integrated practice and discusses the synergistic effects of integrating practice concepts. This includes chapters presenting the overviews of psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and complementary and alternative approaches in the context of the stages of treatment. A new chapter focuses on legal and ethical issues in treatment. Section III applies the information from previous chapters and focuses on integrative management of specific syndromes. The chapters discuss mood disorders, anxiety-related disorders, psychotic symptoms, sleep disturbances, disordered eating, disordered cognition, impulse control, disordered attention, self-directed injury, and other-directed violence. Section IV covers aspects of managing substance misuse, medical problems, pregnancy, telehealth, and forensic issues that often co-occur with psychiatric syndromes. A new chapter focuses on care for sexual and gender minority patients. Section V covers the importance of maintaining competence and quality in clinical practice. The section includes a new chapter on self-care among PMH-APRNs that focuses on resilience in practitioners, and the final chapter focuses on the global perspectives and the future of psychiatric-mental health advanced practice nursing.

The intent of this book is to provide useful knowledge and practical applications to ease the work of leading or working in a hospital-based nursing research program. It contains principles that apply to all sizes of hospitals, as well as hospital systems that may be spread out over multiple states or be contained in one area. The book describes how nursing research provides new evidence for nursing practice that improves clinical outcomes, changes the culture of the organization, creates new leadership roles for nurses, offers opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, enhances patient safety, improves nurse and patient satisfaction, and leads to positive branding of the hospital and the nursing department. Nursing leadership can create (or support) a vision for nursing research based on the benefits that are central to the hospital’s strategic mission and goals. An essential element of setting the foundation and planning, growing, and nurturing a nursing research program is to demonstrate how the program aligns with the strategic plan (vision, mission, and goals) of nursing. The three foundational elements of strong nursing research programs personnel, intranet resources, and a nursing research department database are interconnected and should be available to the entire nursing department, including non-nurse providers and administrators, because important research questions can come from anyone on the team. The nursing research department database is an electronic system of input and storage of direct and indirect data important to the development, conduct, translation, and dissemination of nursing research.

This book focuses on the practice of child psychotherapy, the theories and treatment practice. The book is divided into three parts. The first part dwells on the need for developmentally grounded child psychotherapy. It explores theories of human development, also referred to as developmental psychology and educational theory in order to understand how children are challenged to learn, and reviews theories that speculate how love and our earliest relationships impact health and well-being. Part II assimilates the developmental theory into the pragmatics of child psychotherapy. It discusses the pragmatics of providing child psychotherapy with considerations for therapists, focuses on the legal and ethical challenges that arise when providing child psychotherapy, and reviews the types of assessment tools that cover all phases of development, including emotional, social, developmental, educational, and psychological. The third part presents the best practices in child psychotherapy. Here, models of evidence-based practice in child psychotherapy are reviewed with examples of what each model offers to the treatment process. These theories also describe what the therapist brings to psychotherapy based on the therapist’s belief of what therapy looks like and the therapist’s role in the relationship with the client. One of the chapters guides the therapist through case conceptualization that integrates the most efficacious treatment interventions into the eight-phase template of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Basic issues such as sleeping, feeding, emotional dysregulation, and learning issues are also discussed with common responses and references to provide to parents through a developmentally grounded practice.

This book has been written by Physician Assistants (PA) for PAs. It provides—in a single, comprehensive resource—the information and strategies required by students and clinicians alike to successfully learn and practice medicine. Organized and designed to support the clinical year courses, it provides the foundation for evaluating a patient—including the assessment of pertinent history and physical examination findings—building a differential diagnosis, ordering and performing diagnostic studies, and treating and managing patients with a wide variety of clinical presentations and diagnoses, covering all of the clinical topics on the current National Commission On Certification Of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) blueprint and more. Each chapter is written in clear and concise language and includes summary tables and figures that are easily understood, and photos and diagrams that enhance understanding of the topics. Each chapter is well-referenced, and the chapters collectively follow a digestible and methodical review of conditions, in which discussions are preceded by overviews that cover epidemiology and pathophysiology, introducing specific clinical disorders through their clinical presentation, reviewing physical examination steps and associated findings, and diagnosis details—differentials and tests—for each condition. Also included are treatment options along with important patient education information. Common chief complaints are located at the end of each chapter with useful algorithms. Key points and special considerations for specific patient populations are highlighted throughout the book, and knowledge checks appear at the end of each chapter helping students synthesize and apply what they have learned. The book has been carefully written and edited to promote evidence-based practice in patient evaluation and patient management to ensure that clinicians base decisions on valid and reliable information. It emphasizes an approach to patient care that encompasses cultural competency, social determinants of health, and a wellness perspective.