Medical Assessment Units The Initial Mangement of Acute Medical Patients

by Taylor, John B.; Rhodes, Michelle

• ISBN13: 9781861563255
• ISBN10: 1861563256
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-08
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Increasing demands on acute hospital resources, together with a reduction in the number of available beds, has placed a greater emphasis on the need for rapid and effective assessment of patients in order to determine their need for hospital adsmission. This has led to the widespread emergence of the specialist Medical Assessment Unit (MAU). This timely book provides an up- to-date guide to the assessment and immediate management of patients with acute medical conditions. It presents a structured approach based on common presenting features and focuses on the first twenty four hours of the patients stay in hospital. In writing this book, the editors have been able to draw on their own clinical experiences as a charge nurse in Accident and Emergency nursing and a sister in acute cardiology and respectively.

Author Biography

John Brian Taylor is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Michelle Rhodes is the editor of Medical Assessment Units: The Initial Mangement of Acute Medical Patients, published by Wiley.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	vii
Acknowledgements	ix
List of normal clinical values	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction	xiii
Service organisation in Medical Assessment Units	1	(13)
Ian Wood
Initial assessment of the acute medical patient	14	(21)
Michelle Davies
Judith Morgan
Ian Wood
Vulnerable groups	35	(37)
Linda Miller
Michael Gibbs
Judi Thorley
Elizabeth Whelan
Sudden death	72	(22)
Sue Read
Jane Jervis
Cardiac arrest	94	(31)
Carole Donaldson
Ian Wood
Michelle Rhodes
Shock	125	(25)
Judith Morgan
Altered consciousness	150	(38)
Brendan Davies
Michelle Davies
Lorraine Taylor
Ian Wood
Shortness of breath	188	(44)
Susan Hope
Jacqueline Mitchell
Michelle Rhodes
Helen Whitehouse
Ian Wood
Chest pain	232	(39)
Michelle Rhodes
Abdominal pain and upper gastrointestinal bleeding	271	(28)
Ruth Harris
Terry Wardle
Extremity pain and swelling	299	(12)
Ian Wood
Index	311