Book excerpt: Start here to master the concepts, technology, and procedures of critical care nursing! Introduction to Critical Care Nursing, 8th Edition prepares you to provide safe, effective, patient-centered care in a variety of high-acuity, progressive, and critical care settings. Evidence-based coverage includes realistic case studies and incorporates the latest advances in critical care. Disorders are conveniently organized by body system or special situation, and nursing management chapters include quick-reference nursing care plans. This clear, concise textbook will help you develop the knowledge and clinical reasoning skills needed for success in today's highly complex critical care environments. Critical Reasoning Activities are included throughout the text, promoting development of clinical nursing judgment to help you prepare for the Next-Generation NCLEX-RN® Exam. Emphasis on QSEN competencies enables you to gain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to provide safe, high-quality health care in a variety of high acuity, progressive, and critical care settings. Evidence-Based Practice boxes illustrate how research evidence is used to address problems in patient care and includes nursing implications plus AACN’s new system for Levels of Evidence: A, B, C, D, E, and M. Universal Collaborative Plan of Care for the Critically Ill Patient addresses key aspects of collaborative/interprofessional care that apply to virtually all critically ill patients. Individual Plans of Care prepare you for clinical practice by describing patient problems, patient outcomes, and nursing assessments and interventions with rationales. Case studies challenge you to apply concepts to the real world, testing your clinical nursing judgment by asking questions about patient-specific cases with lab results. Clinical Alerts highlight potential problems and concerns to improve patient safety and clinical care. Laboratory Alerts emphasize the importance of laboratory test results to critical care nursing. Medication tables show the actions/usages, indications, dosages/routes, side effects, and nursing implications of medications commonly used in critical care settings. Coverage of cardiac assistive devices includes the ECMO device for extracorporeal life support, as well as other small, portable, bedside cardiac-assistive devices. Hemodynamic monitoring content now emphasizes the noninvasive methods of hemodynamic monitoring that are becoming more prominent. Coverage of infection control addresses the QSEN safety competency and helps provide patient protection against the growing threat of drug-resistant infections. Nearly 300 full-color photographs and drawings visually clarify key concepts and equipment for better understanding of today’s complex critical care environment.