Respiratory status is a frequent driver of home-health admissions and rehospitalization, and pulmonary decompensation is typically preceded by measurable change — a falling oxygen saturation with exertion, a new productive cough, increasing accessory-muscle use, or shortening sentence length. Recognizing those signals before they become an emergency requires nursing judgment, not a layperson's observation.
The purpose of this module is to give clinicians the skilled framework and chartable language that demonstrate respiratory assessment, monitoring, teaching, and coordination were reasonable and necessary and required the skills of a licensed nurse. It is the primary home for respiratory findings; pulmonary congestion attributable to heart failure and diagnosis-specific COPD management are cross-linked, not duplicated, into the disease overlays.
