Parkland Hospital Case Study

Introduction of the Organization

I work at Parkland Health & Hospital System that has a rich history since its beginnings. First opened its doors in 1894, and is now one of the largest public hospital systems in the country, licensed for 861 adult patient beds and 107 neonatal patient beds and more than 10,000 employees. The hospital averages more than 1 million patient visits annually. Services include a Level I Trauma Center, the second largest civilian burn center in the U.S. and a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The system also includes 20 community-based clinics, 12 school-based clinics and numerous outreach and education programs. Parkland is the primary teaching hospital for the UT Southwestern Medical Center. Parkland is located

Nursing care is provided to every patient under the direction of a Registered Nurse which has the responsibility and accountability for the assessment, nursing interventions, delegations to PCA’s (Patient Care Assistant). For instance, nurses can delegate to PCA’s or unlicensed staff to take vital signs, to draw blood, to bathe patients, patient ambulation, etc. The manager has the responsibilities to maintain qualified staff to perform all the tasks, also is responsible for the overall budget, performance improvement, staff retention, etc. The delegation from charge nurse is going to depend on the floors where they work. Some floors allow the charge nurse to take up to two patients, and others, charge nurses only supervise and help other nurses as necessary. For instance, I did work in a Med/Surg floor, and we had a different charge nurse every day, that was responsible for assigning patients to the rest of nurses according to the acuity and nurse experience delegating major responsibilities to more experienced

We call it PUPs, and I did participate in the group with other nurses. We were a team of around 25 nurses, and every other month we had to get together and visit all the patients in the hospital. We had to check for pressure ulcers, and possible hospital acquired pressure ulcers. We did measure everything from patient diet, condition, mobility, etc. We also helped nurses in each floor if they had any questions about how to handle a patient with pressure ulcers. We also did many in services with new products to treat and prevent pressure ulcers. We monitored the pressure ulcers if they were community, hospital, or unit acquired and then, the manager of the Wound Care Program had to send all this information quarterly to the NDNQI, and if we found many patients with newly hospital acquired pressure ulcers the Wound Care Program manager and her team had to implement a plan with new ideas to lower the pressure ulcers in the floors, and to educate the nurses and techs in order to be more successful in prevention of pressure ulcers because the treatment can be