[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.

Thanks in advance for any comments / suggestions. Sandy

[TanaLisa]

Our unit uses a patients admitting weight for their entire length of stay. A base weight is probably the most accurate with all the diuresing or hydrating we do.
Depending on the patients diagnosis whether the flush solution is heparinized.


[This message has been edited by TanaLisa (edited 11-07-98).]

[barb o]

In our unit, we use "dry" weight for surgical patients in our care. In my understanding, pharmacists don't even all agree on whether to use dry weight or adjusted weight. I know, in many instances, drug therapy is guided by whether or not the desired effect is achieved so weight and BSA are not critical.
We also use heparin flushes for our invasive monitoring devices unless a patient is known to have allergy or heparin-induced antibodies.