[ayla2004]

i try not to abbreviate however it becomes so common from practie
each clinical area has its own set of them, and i end up picking them up.
when wtriting in patient notes we reored the ews score why it s raised and use abbreviations for whatever value heart rate hr etc.
our new obs form can be modified but the docs don't probaly as its the h.o. doing most of the work.
there are a number of extra abreviated units in my home trust most are the norm, itu, mhdu. shdu, nhdu, scbu, rhdu, etc

[cariad]

abbreviations are the way of it over here, but any american or non brit nurse reading your post would not have a clue what you are talking about. I even had to understand it and my command of the english language is good.

[RGN1]

I got lost on Jane's abbreviations big time!! Lucky for me the most we have is patients who we class as being HDU - I can cope with that one!!

I liked the "hot tool" we used in the last trust I worked in (about the only thing I liked ) It was simple, easy to follw & gave clear directions as to what the next step was. Every nurse was issued with a small, credit card sized, laminated version to keep with them. It was a really good idea & was done in conjunction with a really active critical care outreach team. It truly was great & I'm sure it must have made a difference to intensive care admission rates.