Policy and procedure manual: keeping a high quality manual

Policy and procedure manuals are now commonly used in hospitals. The policy and procedure manual provides critical care nurses with a wealth of information. Policies are developed to guide the staff to perform nursing care adequately. Together policies and the corresponding procedures let critical care nurses know how to proceed to meet the organisation and the unit goals. As critical care expands the number of policies increases, which may make it more difficult to find a specific policy quickly. Critical care nurses need to look at other solutions for communicating some necessary pieces of information and check to make sure that policy is stated briefly, to the point and logical. It is also necessary to check to see if the information included in the manual is policy and associated procedures. If it is drug information, equipment usage, standards of care, or patient/family teaching material it could be incorporated in a different format or separate manual. As care givers nurses must monitor policies and procedures that are written and make sure they are simple to read, logically written, and easy to find.