Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses: Chief Complaints with High-Risk Presentations

Awarded third place in the 2023 AJN Book of the Year Awards in Critical Care–Emergency Nursing.

Provides critical information to help healthcare providers ensure patient safety by preventing "misses" or "near-misses"

Newly updated, this life-saving pocket-sized clinical manual guides triage nurses to rapidly recognize life-threatening or life-altering conditions. The second edition delivers new chapters on endocrine emergencies, hematologic and oncologic emergencies, sexual assault and intimate partner violence, and human trafficking. Pediatric and older adult chapters offer extensive new information on assessment, triage pearls, and key tips for age-related emergencies. Also included is updated STEMI, Stroke, and Sepsis guidelines.

Focusing on patient-driven chief complaints, this resource provides a wealth of concise information covering each body system along with first-line questions, assessments, and interventions to determine the patient's level of urgency, sick versus not sick. Prominent icons denote critical signs and symptoms and deliver invaluable information from experienced triage/ED nurses. Content encompasses triage, waiting room and legal issues, high-risk medical conditions, and special issues in emergency care. Including action steps to aid in prioritizing during a crisis, the resource covers trauma, burns, active shooter/active threat, and emergency management during a disaster. Reference tables and checklists facilitate at-a-glance retrieval of crucial information. Opportunities for customization include space for taking notes, inscribing important phone numbers, and pasting facility-specific policies/procedures.

New to the Second Edition:

• New chapters addressing endocrine emergencies, hematologic and oncologic emergencies, sexual assault and intimate partner violence, and human trafficking
• Expanded content in the triage, pediatric, and older adult chapters
• Enhanced red flags, triage considerations, and key tips, along with updates to the screening tools
• Reformatted and condensed chief complaint layout throughout the book to increase accessibility of information
• Worst-case scenarios to consider throughout each body system chapter
• Access to the Pediatric Assessment Triangle and pediatric vital signs and detailed information for performing the A-B-C-D-E assessment

Key Features:

• Expedites critical decision-making with quick access to key reference material
• Delivers information honed from decades of combined emergency nursing experience
• Uses icons to quickly direct the user to relevant content areas
• Enhances clinical judgment with essential tips regarding common chief complaints
• Sheds light on complex issues with unique patient presentations
• Highlights key pediatric and older-adult considerations
• Covers disaster response and active shooter/violent situation action steps
• Access to blank pages for customizing the book to meet individual needs

Lynn Sayre Visser, MSN, RN, PHN, CEN, CPEN, FAEN has devoted her 28 year career to emergency nursing, triage education, mentoring others, and writing about topics that impact nursing. Her career has been complemented by experience in prehospital care, ICUs, post-anesthesia care units, and as an organ procurement coordinator. Her passion for quality patient care led her to play instrumental roles in the implementation of a provider in triage, rapid triage assessment, and immediate bedding processes along with formalized triage education in multiple facilities. She is a change-agent and philanthropist and has been published in a variety of arenas. She is the co-author of Fast Facts for the Triage Nurse: An Orientation and Care Guide, Essentials for the Triage Nurse, Rapid Access Guide for Triage and Emergency Nurses, and Rapid Access Guide for Pediatric Emergency Nursing. Her work has been recognized with two American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards, the 2019 Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) Media Award, the 2021 ENA Team Award, as well as the 2019 Sigma Theta Tau Edith Moore Copeland Founders Award for excellence in creativity. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Nursing with an emphasis in education and a double Bachelor of Science degree in nursing and exercise physiology.

Anna Sivo Montejano, DNP, RN, PHN, CEN, has over three decades of experience in emergency nursing and triage education. She has taught nursing theory and aided the professional development of nurses as a preceptor, mentor, and clinical instructor. She has been a certified emergency nurse for more than 30 years. Her ED contributions include work as a staff nurse, primary preceptor, and assistant nurse manager, as well as in educational development. Dr. Montejano has worked to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care through projects such as the change process of rapid medical screenings and rapid triage assessments; as a project manager for a major ED expansion; and as an advanced cardiac life support instructor. She authored Fast Facts for the Triage Nurse: An Orientation and Care Guide in a Nutshell, which won third place in the 2015 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards in the critical care/emergency category, the Emergency Nursing Association, Media award in 2019, and the Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI) Nurse Educator of the Year. This book has since become available in the United Kingdom under the title Essentials for the Triage Nurse: An Orientation and Care Guide. She has her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from California State University, Northern Consortium (Fresno and San Jose State University), her Master's Degree in Nursing with a focus on education, and her Bachelor of Science degree.