A group of 20 physicians and 10 nurse practitioners are trying to determine if standing order sets for Registered Nurses (RNs) should be implemented in the hospital setting. It can be burdening for physicians and RNs to take and recieve telphone orders for medications that the RN is confident in ordering themselves. This would include medications that could be used for sleep aids or agitation (Trazadone, Quetiapine, Melatonin) and bowel medications (PEG, Sennakot, Lactulose, Fleet Enemas). Other standing orders would include a chest pain protocol (including a requirement for a stat EKG, vitals prior to administration of nitro spray and then nitro spray q5min x3 sprays or until patient rates chest pain as a 0/10 and escalation to a physician if there is no relief after 3 sprays) and the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment (CIWA) protocol used for patients experiencing alcohol withdrawal when admitted into the hospital (this could include the ability for RNs to order this order set if the patient report having 'X' amount of alcohol per day along with experiencing alcohol withdrawal symptoms (diaphoretic, tremors, tachycardic, agitation, etc.).
Round Two:
Using the common themes and viewpoints that were identified in round one, this round of questionnaire will focus more on the specific issues to gain even more specific data from the panel of participants. The researchers will gather the data from the responses in round two to further remove data that is not agreed upon by participants and further focus more in-depth on the agreed-upon responses.