This open educational resource (OER) was developed to ensure best practice and quality care based on the latest evidence, and to address inconsistencies in how clinical health care skills are taught and practised in the clinical setting. The checklist approach, used in this textbook, aims to provide standardized processes for clinical skills and to help nursing schools and clinical practice partners keep procedural practice current. Each skill/procedure is covered in a chapter that has learning objectives, a brief overview of the relevant theory, checklists of steps for procedures with the rationale behind each step of the process, and a summary of key takeaways. Key terms are set in bold throughout the book and laid out again in a Glossary in the appendix. All 88 checklists are also summarized, and hyperlinked to the original checklist, in the appendix.

The ideas people have about health, the languages they use, the health literacy skills they have, and the contexts in which they communicate about health reflect their cultures. Your organization can become more health literate and increase its communication effectiveness when your staff recognizes and bridges cultural differences that may contribute to miscommunication.

Health Case Studies is composed of eight separate health case studies. Each case study includes the patient narrative or story that models the best practice (at the time of publishing) in healthcare settings. Associated with each case is a set of specific learning objectives to support learning and facilitate educational strategies and evaluation.

Infant mortality – or the death of a baby before his/her first birthday – is a critical indicator of community health. In addition to infant deaths, we track preterm births, low birthweight births, causes of infant deaths, and racial disparities in these indicators.

The purpose of this textbook is to provide an orientation to the healthcare delivery system including history, economics, medical/legal issues, professionalism, ethics, sociological aspects and wellness concepts. We will also be exploring the use and integration of technology in the healthcare system. And finally you can’t have an introduction to healthcare without including the development of healthcare team skills including critical thinking and problem solving strategies and multicultural healthcare perspectives.

This video lesson explains how social theories such as intersectionality, class consciousness, and absolute vs relative poverty relate to the field of healthcare.