Nursing education, competency, and role in intravenous conscious sedation

The advent of new hospital policies addressing analgesia and sedation motivates the nursing education department to implement an education plan for training RNs in the safe administration of medications that produce analgesia and sedation according to hospital policies. Learning materials must be procured or written, classroom content delineated, and a plan to precept all RNs who may be involved in IVCS procedures arranged. Our institution faced many obstacles in implementing such a program, including scheduling class time and clinical teaching time for IVCS preceptors, availability of IVCS procedures when preceptors and learners are available, and determining the course of action before a procedure requiring IVCS if the physician had not yet completed physician IVCS training. Obtaining quality monitoring data from these procedures is best initiated when the initial program is introduced. The RN's role in collecting quality monitoring data is crucial. The development of forms that include all required aspects of patient assessment, care, and monitoring promotes compliance with hospital policy.