Preventing Delirium through the Implementation of the ABCDE Bundle and PAD Guideline into Everyday Care in a Community Hospital Intensive Care Unit: Opportunities for Practice Improvement

This DNP project focuses on the reduction of delirium through improvement of nursing knowledge of delirium and implementation of evidence based bundle ( Awake, Breathing, Coordination, Early Mobility, and Pain, Agitation, Delirium) into a twelve bed intensive care unit located in a 150 bed community hospital. Specifically, this project will review the literature supporting the evidence based bundle and report on a comprehensive gap analysis which was done to determine areas for practice improvement to reduce delirium and improve patient outcomes. The gap analysis included a comparison of current practice to the evidence, a review of administrative policies/ statements of care standards, and knowledge of nurses about delirium and their views of key aspects of the proposed evidence based bundle. This report will also discuss the implementation process of the evidence based bundle into everyday practice in the target ICU using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Science (CIFR) model and report on preliminary outcomes after implementation of the evidence based care bundles