Strengthen your advanced practice, acute care nursing skills with Essential Procedures: Acute Care, the indispensable tool for learning how to safely and confidently perform the most common acute care procedures. 

Organized by body systems, the procedures covered in this book include arterial line insertion, wound closure, and lumbar puncture. A handy, spiral-bound text that lies flat, this ideal resource offers step-by-step direction for acute care nursing students; it is also a handy on-the-unit reference for new acute care nurse practitioners. 

Learn best practices and improve your acute care procedural skills with this expert guidance:

• Each chapter walks you through at least one procedure, with easy-to-follow organization and full-color photos and illustrations that clearly demonstrate each step: 
  • Indications for the procedure
  • Absolute and relative contraindications
  • Equipment needed
  • Steps to performing the procedure
  • Potential risks and complications
  • Post-procedural care

• Cardiovascular procedures – central venous catheter placement, transvenous pacing, transcutaneous pacemakers, cardioversion, starting an intraosseous infusion, pulmonary catheter insertion 
• Pulmonary procedures – endotracheal intubation, tube thoracostomy (chest tube) placement, needle decompression, removing chest tubes, thoracentesis, bronchoscopy, changing tracheostomy 
• Gastrointestinal procedures – paracentesis, inserting small-bore feeding tubes (nasoduodenal and nasogastric)
• Integumentary procedures – administering local anesthetics, sutures and staples, incision and drainage, paronychia, nail hematoma release 
• Neurological and musculoskeletal procedures – compartment pressure monitoring, arthrocentesis, negative pressure wound therapy application, cast application
• Hematological procedures – peripheral venipuncture, femoral venipuncture, arterial blood gas 
• Evidence-based research bibliographies appear at the end of each chapter
• Reference chapters boost your understanding of interpreting diagnostics and responding to emergencies, with coverage of:
  • 12-lead electrocardiogram interpretation, 
  • hemodynamic values and parameters, 
  • pulmonary function test interpretation, 
  • rapid sequence intubation, 
  • basics of mechanical ventilation, 
  • oxygen therapy, 
  • trauma assessment, and 
  • responding to a rapid response, cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

 About the Clinical Editors

Anthony Angelow, PhD, MSN, CRNP, ACNP-BC, AGACNP-BC, ACNPC, CEN, is Assistant Clinical Professor, Chair of Advanced Practice Nursing and Co-Chair of the Division of Graduate Nursing College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Dawn M. Specht, MSN, PhD, RN, APN, CEN, CPEN, CCRN, CCNS, AGACNP-BC, is Associate Professor of Nursing at American Sentinel University in Aurora, Colorado.