Continuing Professional Development for General and Aged Care Nurses

8.30am - Registration and Refreshments

9.00am - Dealing Intelligently With Workplace Conflict

With workplace change accelerating daily, tensions can emerge that are occasionally conflictual.  This interesting session looks at approaches that nurses can take to identify “hot spots” of conflict, prevent them and then manage them appropriately if they occur.

• Is some degree of conflict between staff and others inevitable?
• What can be done to prevent unnecessary tension?
• An overview of some trouble-shooting approaches and an understanding that sometimes only partial resolution is possible.

10.30am - Morning Tea and Coffee

11.00am - When Relatives are Hostile, Demanding and/or Manipulative

• What are the feature of demanding behaviours and manipulative ploys?
• How to respond to rude and demanding behaviours.
• Which strategies are useful when responding to relatives who are manipulative?
• What is hostility and how to prevent it from escalating into verbal or physical aggression?
• If an adverse incident involving a relative occurs, what should you do.

12.30pm - Lunch Break & Time to Network

1.30pm - Smart Pump Technology

• What is a Smart Pump System?
• Learn about the components of intravenous medication errors and how to reduce risk.
• Overview of other smart pump technologies for reducing the incidence of life-threatening errors.
• Emphasis on risk identification as a foundation for effective and safe pump selection.

2.15pm - Falls Prevention and the Danger of Bed

Recent research shows that 38% of all incidents in Australian hospitals are related to falls. This presentation will provide evidence and guidance with regard to the major issues of entrapment, strangulation and suffocation from the mattress and the bedrails.

• What role do beds play in falls, restraint and even life-threatening entrapment?
• Guidelines for using this equipment safely and correctly.

3.00pm - Afternoon Tea and Coffee

3.30pm - Morbid Obesity and Best Practice Nursing Care

Care of a morbidly obese person is complex. For example, the high potential for skin breakdown and poor wound healing require intelligent, evidence-based, preventative care.  As well, there is serious risk of harm to staff in areas relating to mobility.

• Which risk management strategies need to be considered when caring for a person who is obese?
• How to appropriately select equipment to prevent pressure ulcer development in this patient population.
• Bariatrics – definition and an update.
• What predisposes people to develop obesity?
• Discussion of the types of available surgical procedures and the health benefits.

4.15pm - End of Day One of Program

9.00am - Evidence-Based Skin Care

This session emphasises the importance for nurses to apply contemporary research findings to enhance skin care and prevent either pressure ulcers or dermatitis associated with incontinence.

9.20am - Pressure Ulcer Prevention and Management

A look at pressure ulcers, their prevention, warning signs and management.

• Who is at risk of developing pressure ulcers and why?
• Following in-patient admission, when should the initial assessment occur?
• Summary of nursing assessment and treatment guidelines.
• Understanding the importance of the correct selection of equipment.

10.30am - Pressure Care Documentation

• An exploration of some tools, which facilitate evidence-based documentation.
• When does the development of a pressure ulcer become an incident?
• What are the implications of such incidents.

11.00am - Morning Tea and Coffee

11.30am - Patient Care Errors and Inconvenient Truth

Australian research shows that 10% of patient admitted to hospitals are being harmed, 7% with fatal outcomes. Most of these incidents are preventable.

• The public has an expectation that health care providers will be honest in their dealings with the public. What are the barriers to truth telling when adverse events occur?
• The human element in clinical mistakes – how does this knowledge shape risk-reducing policies and procedures?
• When errors are due to a mistake where a nurse is involved, what happens? Is it OK to apologise?
• Practical approaches to the creation of quality improvement policies which are realistic and which genuinely enhance the safety of staff and patients.

This session will include a short DVD entitled: “Things To Know Before You Go Into Hospital”

12.30pm - Lunch Break & Browse the Book Display

1.30pm - Overview of Health Law

• Revision of what constitutes a nurse’s duty of care?
• What does the law take into consideration when examining a case of professional neglect?
• What do the courts consider when making decisions in cases of negligence?
• What is meant by vicarious liability and what is the significance of professional indemnity insurance?

2.15pm - Medications, Clinical Nursing and the Law

Adolescent impulsiveness and recklessness, with no thought for consequences is invariably a concern for parents, teachers and health workers.

• Helpful hints for breaking down communication barriers

3.00pm  - Afternoon Tea and Coffee

3.30pm - Documentation

4.15pm - Close of Program and Evaluations