Mixing surgical and burn patients

BethanyJ · Mar 8, 1999

I'm a little curious as to why your faclity has combined these patients? I can't help to think that consolidating burn patients with sicu patients is asking for BIG trouble. Those with burns are tremendously compromised and susceptible to infections when they are separated from all other patients because of their altered first line of defense, not to mention that infections such as MRSA are prevalent in SICU's. I would be working hard to get those with burns back into a unit of their own. In the meantime...I would say prevention is your key and I would stress to your nursing staff the imortance of preventing cross-over contamination. It may help to make sure that care givers' assignments are not mixed to include both burn and sicu patients, and I'd make sure the burns were kept in private rooms. You're going to have to be very conscientious in the terms of prevention. From what my friend tells me (she works a burn unit)once a burn does acquire MRSA or VRE, that patient is going to be a longer time recovering...if he/she survives an infection on top of his/her already compromised health status. I wish you luck and hope someone here has some definate answers for you.