The topic of tracheal acquired infections was something that I previously did not have much knowledge about. After my group and I had researched and reviewed literature surrounding the topic, I had come to understand the severity of these infections, as well as the importance of preventing them. I discovered that tracheal acquired infections were not uncommon and could lead to further infections, pain, and even death. I also learned that oral care was a key part in preventing these infections. Performing daily oral care helps to keep the microbiome of the oral cavity healthy and balanced. This helps to reduce the incidence of infections and therefore also reduce the incidence of further complications.

Reviewing the literature emphasized the importance of oral care for tracheostomy patients and the care we perform as a nurse to help reduce complications. I thought all nurses performed oral care daily, but I realized that after reviewing the literature that it was common for nurses to skip this step in personal care. This may be due to time restraints, high assignments, or other factors, but oral care is too important to skip. It is a fairly simple task that nurses can do every day and it provides great benefits to patients. In my personal nursing practice, I plan to focus on oral care for all of my patients, but especially my patients with tracheostomies, due to the higher risk of complications.

My team and I had to revise the draft of the proposal a few times to fine tune it. We had included too much detail in certain areas and not enough in others. We were successful in meeting the requirements of the proposal in our final draft. We were able to revise the content needed and formulate a good quality proposal. We also ran into challenges that included meeting together and doing a fair share of the work. For meetings, whoever could not attend didn’t and we met without them. We later filled them in on what was discussed so everyone was on the same page. As for sharing the workload, we tried to assign areas to individuals in the group. This did not always work out, but we were still able to complete the assignment.