Suturing of minor lacerations by clinical nurse specialists in the emergency department.

A programme enabling clinical nurse specialists (CNS) to suture minor lacerations in the emergency department (ED) was implemented at Monash Medical Centre (MMC), Melbourne, Australia. A descriptive comparative design was used to evaluate the programme. Patients meeting the inclusion criteria of the project were randomly assigned to group 1 (the medical group) and group 2 (the CNS group). Analysis of the data found that patient length of stay was not significantly different between the two groups. However, those patients cared for by the CNS group appeared to be more satisfied with their care and the overall services received. Wound healing outcomes were found to be similar between the CNS sutured group and those sutured by medical staff. The implementation of this new role for CNS in the ED appeared to be successful from the point of view of patient outcomes.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes