[ragland]

Does your unit have any guidelines regarding the following situation:
If a patient's weight changes from one day to the next, eg., by 10 pounds, do you reenter the new weight used to calcualte body surface area when doing cardiac outputs, or do you continue to use the initial weight. I know dry weight would be the ideal weight to use, but some patients are admitted with volume overload already. Any suggestions?

Also, does everyone still use heparinized solution as your flush solution for the Swan Ganz Catheter, or are you using saline? We still use heparinized solution but some hospitals in our area are using saline.

Thnaks in advance for any comments / suggestions. Sandy

Sandy, the unit I presently work in doesn't have any guidelines. However, when I've worked in teaching hospitals, we usually adjusted the drips according to the wt. as well as plugging in the 'new wt.' for the cardiac index. We're using heparinized saline in our flush lines
Aggie