Book excerpt: Master nursing skills with this guide from the respected Perry, Potter & Ostendorf author team! The concise coverage in Nursing Interventions & Clinical Skills, 6th Edition makes it easy to master the clinical skills required in everyday nursing practice. Clear guidelines address 159 basic, intermediate, and advanced skills - from measuring body temperature to insertion of a peripheral intravenous device - and step-by-step instructions emphasize the use of evidence-based concepts to improve patient safety and outcomes. Its friendly, easy-to-read writing style includes a streamlined format and an Evolve companion website with review questions and handy checklists for each skill. Coverage of 159 skills and interventions addresses basic, intermediate, and advanced skills you'll use every day in practice. UNIQUE! Using Evidence in Nursing Practice chapter provides the information needed to use evidence-based practice to solve clinical problems. Safe Patient Care Alerts highlight unusual risks in performing skills, so you can plan ahead at each step of nursing care. Delegation & Collaboration guidelines help you make decisions in whether to delegate a skill to unlicensed assistive personnel, and indicates what key information must be shared. Special Considerations indicate additional risks or accommodations you may face when caring for pediatric or geriatric patients, and patients in home care settings. Documentation guidelines include samples of nurses' notes showing what should be reported and recorded after performing skills. A consistent format for nursing skills makes it easier to perform skills, always including Assessment, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation. A Glove icon identifies procedures in which clean gloves should be worn or gloves should be changed in order to minimize the risk of infection. Media resources include skills performance checklists on the Evolve companion website and related lessons, videos, and interactive exercises on Nursing Skills Online. NEW coverage of evidence-based techniques to improve patient safety and outcomes includes the concept of care bundles, structured practices that have been proven to improve the quality of care, and teach-back, a new step that shows how you can evaluate your success in patient teaching. NEW! Coverage of HCAHPS (Hospital Care Quality Information from the Consumer Perspective) introduces a concept now widely used to evaluate hospitals across the country. NEW! Teach-Back step shows how to evaluate the success of patient teaching, so you can be sure that the patient has mastered a task or consider trying additional teaching methods. NEW! Updated 2012 Infusion Nurses Society standards are incorporated for administering IVs, as well as other changes in evidence-based practice. NEW topics include communication with cognitively impaired patients, discharge planning and transitional care, and compassion fatigue for professional and family caregivers.