NURS 8750 Week 4 Project Abstract Example

Nurse-Led Mobilization of Ventilated Adults in a Community ICU: A Quality Improvement Project

Student Name

College of Nursing, Walden University

NURS 8750: Doctoral Seminar V

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Nurse-Led Mobilization of Ventilated Adults in a Community ICU: A Quality Improvement Project

Abstract

Background: Ventilated patients in a 14-bed community intensive care unit (ICU) rarely sat up; in a four-month record review they were upright over the side of the mattress on only 18% of eligible ventilator days. Local problem and aim: The target was that half of all qualifying ventilator days would reach an upright seated position at the bedside, defined as at least 3 on the ICU Mobility Scale. Methods: Night nurses screened ventilated patients at 0400 against published safety criteria, and day nurses mobilized those who passed with respiratory therapist support. A four-week prospective baseline was followed by two improvement cycles. Weekly measures were plotted on run charts and read by standard rules. Two balancing measures tracked stopped sessions and emergency department respiratory response times. Results: Sitting-up days rose from 20 of 90 (22.2%) in the baseline to 75 of 186 (40.3%) in eight protocol weeks, with a shift beginning in the first week. Weekday days rose from 23.4% to 47.8%; weekend days did not change (19.2% to 21.2%). Six of 81 sessions stopped under safety rules, without falls or device dislodgement. Sedation orders with a lighter default target took effect a day before the routine started. Conclusions: A nurse-led screen and mobilization routine was followed by more frequent sitting on weekdays in a unit without dedicated therapy staff. The concurrent sedation change prevents attribution to the protocol alone, and weekend practice needs a separate design.

Keywords: early mobilization, mechanical ventilation, critical care nursing, quality improvement

Note on What Was Cut

The first full draft of this abstract ran to 412 words. The target was 250 words, the limit the program sets for the abstract of the final document. The final version runs to about 240 words, excluding keywords. Five kinds of material were removed, and each removal was checked against one question: would a reader who sees only the abstract be misled without it?

1. The evidence review (about 60 words). The draft summarized four trials. One clause of background replaced it, because the abstract reports this project, not the literature. A reader is not misled by the cut, since the conclusion makes no claim that depends on trial evidence.

2. The process measures (about 40 words). Screen completion and the share of passed screens acted on were cut. This was the hardest removal, because they explain the weekend gap. The weekday and weekend split was kept instead, as the one result that shows the protocol's limits most directly.

3. Response-time detail (about 30 words). The median times and number of calls were cut, leaving the balancing measure named in the methods. With seven calls, a median would invite more confidence than the data hold, so naming the measure without a number misleads no one.

4. Run chart rules (about 35 words). The trend and runs findings were cut; the shift was kept because it shows the change began in the first protocol week.

5. Unit description (about 45 words). Staffing patterns and the late-morning window were cut. The phrase "without dedicated therapy staff" was kept in the conclusion, because it tells a reader in another hospital whether the setting resembles theirs.

What was never cut was the sedation sentence. An earlier draft moved it to the full discussion to save words. It went back in, because an abstract that reports a rise without the concurrent change is exactly the overclaim the committee would look for first. SQUIRE 2.0 asks that an abstract summarize the key information in the report, including the main limitations (Ogrinc et al., 2016), and the abstract is the only page some readers will ever see. The numbers were copied from the fact sheet built after the document audit, not from earlier drafts, and checked against the results section (Perla et al., 2011), using the same scale definitions throughout (Hodgson et al., 2014).

References

Hodgson, C., Needham, D., Haines, K., Bailey, M., Ward, A., Harrold, M., Young, P., Zanni, J., Buhr, H., Higgins, A., Presneill, J., & Berney, S. (2014). Feasibility and inter-rater reliability of the ICU Mobility Scale. Heart & Lung, 43(1), 19-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrtlng.2013.11.003

Ogrinc, G., Davies, L., Goodman, D., Batalden, P., Davidoff, F., & Stevens, D. (2016). SQUIRE 2.0 (Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence): Revised publication guidelines from a detailed consensus process. BMJ Quality & Safety, 25(12), 986-992. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004411

Perla, R. J., Provost, L. P., & Murray, S. K. (2011). The run chart: A simple analytical tool for learning from variation in healthcare processes. BMJ Quality & Safety, 20(1), 46-51. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs.2009.037895