Lab Values in Acute Care Therapy: To Modify Treatment or Not

Course Description

As a healthcare professional, initial responsibility is to ensure safe, accurate, and effective interventions throughout all treatments with a patient. While all settings fall under this expectation, it is acute care that tends to be more volatile in modification thoughtfulness than any other settings due to the fragility of patients. When polled, most acute care therapists reported viewing their care of a patient as a linear, stepwise process from admission to discharge. Thereby, it is essential to equip acute care therapists with the evidence-based reasoning for clinical decision making that is backed by confidence and willingness to change course each day, each session. Of the objectives determining treatment approach for each session, lab values account for the most overlooked appraisal establishing daily clinical management. For this reason, this course was created in the mindset of and education opportunity to practicing acute care therapists with the essential knowledge of critical labs, the meaning of their efficacy, and modification suggestions to secure safe and therapeutic implementation. Of the crucial learning objectives, the physiological meaning of each lab value will be addressed along with their appropriate suggested modification. With evidenced based guidance, you, as an acute care therapist will feel rooted in your comprehension of verifiable measures of essential markers of a patient’s prevalent status via calculated numerical values.

Course Objectives

At the end of this course, the participant will be able to:

• Recognize critical lab values and why they are important to acute therapy treatment plans
• Identify which lab values will most likely alter intended treatment plan
• Interpret how treatment options will be modified based upon presence or lack thereof abnormal lab values
• Explain when/how/why to collaborate with other clinical team members in regards to patient status and treatment appropriateness
• Formulate reputable documentation in regards to explanation of treatment adaptation

• Prerequisites

  None

• Educational Level

  Intermediate

• Other

  Satisfactory completion of this course will require the participant to respond to various polling questions asked throughout the webinar.