How to become a Acute Care Nurse 2024

Acute Care Nurse Provide advanced nursing care for patients with acute conditions such as heart attacks, respiratory distress syndrome, or shock. May care for pre- and post-operative patients or perform advanced, invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

Acute Care Nurse is Also Know as

In different settings, Acute Care Nurse is titled as

Cardiac Interventional Care Nurse
Charge Nurse
Preceptor
Progressive Care Unit RN (Progressive Care Unit Registered Nurse)
Staff Nurse

Education and Training of Acute Care Nurse

Acute Care Nurse is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Acute Care Nurse

Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.

Education Required for Acute Care Nurse

Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Degrees Related to Acute Care Nurse

Training Required for Acute Care Nurse

Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Acute Care Nurse in different industries are

What Do Acute Care Nurse do?

Analyze the indications, contraindications, risk complications, and cost-benefit tradeoffs of therapeutic interventions.
Diagnose acute or chronic conditions that could result in rapid physiological deterioration or life-threatening instability.
Distinguish between normal and abnormal developmental and age-related physiological and behavioral changes in acute, critical, and chronic illness.
Manage patients' pain relief and sedation by providing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions, monitoring patients' responses, and changing care plans accordingly.
Interpret information obtained from electrocardiograms (EKGs) or radiographs (x-rays).
Perform emergency medical procedures, such as basic cardiac life support (BLS), advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), and other condition-stabilizing interventions.
Assess urgent and emergent health conditions, using both physiologically and technologically derived data.
Adjust settings on patients' assistive devices, such as temporary pacemakers.
Assess the impact of illnesses or injuries on patients' health, function, growth, development, nutrition, sleep, rest, quality of life, or family, social and educational relationships.
Collaborate with members of multidisciplinary health care teams to plan, manage, or assess patient treatments.
Discuss illnesses and treatments with patients and family members.
Document data related to patients' care, including assessment results, interventions, medications, patient responses, or treatment changes.
Treat wounds or superficial lacerations.
Set up, operate, or monitor invasive equipment and devices, such as colostomy or tracheotomy equipment, mechanical ventilators, catheters, gastrointestinal tubes, and central lines.
Obtain specimens or samples for laboratory work.
Order, perform, or interpret the results of diagnostic tests and screening procedures based on assessment results, differential diagnoses, and knowledge about age, gender and health status of clients.
Participate in patients' care meetings and conferences.
Prescribe medications and observe patients' reactions, modifying prescriptions as needed.
Refer patients for specialty consultations or treatments.
Administer blood and blood product transfusions or intravenous infusions, monitoring patients for adverse reactions.
Assist patients in organizing their health care system activities.
Assess the needs of patients' family members or caregivers.
Collaborate with patients to plan for future health care needs or to coordinate transitions and referrals.
Read current literature, talk with colleagues, and participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in acute care.
Participate in the development of practice protocols.
Perform administrative duties that facilitate admission, transfer, or discharge of patients.
Provide formal and informal education to other staff members.

Qualities of Good Acute Care Nurse

Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.

Tools Used by Acute Care Nurse

Alligator forceps
Angiocaths
Apnea monitors
Arterial blood gas testing equipment
Arterial line catheters
Automated external defibrillators AED
Automated medicine dispensing equipment
Autotransfusion systems
Backboards
Bedpans
Bilevel positive airway pressure BiPAP ventilators
Blood drawing syringes
Blood glucometers
Blood pressure monitors
Breast pumps
Bronchoscopes
Bulb syringes
Cardiac monitors
Cast carts
Cast cutting saws
Chest drains
Clinical trapeze traction bars
Crash carts
Crutches
Desktop computers
Diagnostic tuning forks
Digital medical thermometers
Doppler ultrasound equipment
Ear curettes
Electrocardiography EKG machines
Electronic compressor nebulizers
Electrosurgical cauterization machines
End tidal carbon dioxide monitors
Endotracheal ET tubes
Enema equipment
Enteral feeding sets
Epidural catheters
Evacuated blood collection tubes
Eye lavage kits
Fetal monitors
Fiberoptic endoscopes
Graduated glass laboratory cylinders
Handheld nebulizers
Hemodynamic monitors
Hyper/hypothermia blankets
Hypodermic syringes
Incentive spirometers
Incision drainage equipment
Intracranial pressure monitors
Intravenous infusion pumps
Intravenous IV administration sets
Intravenous IV cutdown trays
Intubation sets
Isolettes
Laceration repair trays
Lancets
Laptop computers
Magill forceps
Manual resuscitation bags
Mechanical intermittent positive pressure ventilators
Mechanical stethoscopes
Medical examination protective gloves
Medical gurneys
Medical scales
Microscope slides
Multiple lumen central line catheters
Nasal catheters
Nasal specula
Nasal suctioning equipment
Nasogastric tubes
Nasopharyngeal airways
Newborn warming lamps
Occlusion clamps
Ophthalmic slit lamps
Ophthalmic tonometers
Ophthalmoscopes
Oral suctioning equipment
Orthopedic splinting equipment
Ostomy equipment
Otoscopes
Oxygen concentrators
Oxygen delivery masks
Oxygen flowmeters
Patient restraints
Patient walkers
Pediatric crash carts
Pericardiocentesis kits
Pill crushers
Pill splitters
Pneumatic boots
Protective face shields
Protective gowns
Protective medical face masks
Pulmonary artery catheters
Pulse oximeters
Reflex hammers
Ring cutters
Ring forceps
Safety goggles
Sandbags
Skin staplers
Specialty patient care beds
Specimen collection containers
Sphygmomanometers
Straight hemostats
Straight surgical scissors
Surgical irrigation sets
Surgical razors
Surgical scalpels
Surgical staple removers
Suture removal kits
Swan Ganz artery catheters
Tablet computers
Telemetry monitors
Thoracentesis kits
Thoracentesis trays
Tongue blades
Tourniquets
Tracheal suctioning equipment
Tracheotomy sets
Traction weights
Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
Transcutaneous pacemakers
Transfer boards
Transport cardiac monitors
Transvenous pacemakers
Ultrasound transducers
Umbilical catheters
Urinalysis test strips
Urinary catheters
Urine analysis equipment
Vaginal exam speculas
Venous oxygen saturation SVO2 monitors
Visual acuity charts
Wheelchairs
Wood's lamps

Technology Skills required for Acute Care Nurse

Allscripts Professional EHR
Amkai AmkaiCharts
Bizmatics PrognoCIS EMR
Cerner Millennium
ChartWare EMR
e-MDs software
eClinicalWorks EHR software
GE Healthcare Centricity EMR
IBM Lotus Notes
Medscribbler Enterprise
MicroFour PracticeStudio.NET EMR
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office software
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Word
NextGen Healthcare Information Systems EMR
SAP software
SOAPware EMR
StatCom Patient Flow Logistics Enterprise Suite
SynaMed EMR
Texas Medical Software SpringCharts EMR

US Universities

How to become Acute Care Nurse in 2024