[ALISON CLARK]

DOES ANYONE HAVE A POLICY FOR NURSE LED WEANING OF VENTILATION?

[pedihomecare]

Originally posted by ALISON CLARK:
DOES ANYONE HAVE A POLICY FOR NURSE LED WEANING OF VENTILATION?

Aren't you given doctors orders for weaning?
Usually, we taper off on PEEP and pressure support gradually. Also reduce breath rate as tolerated at the same time. Other parameters can also be reduced or eliminated depending on the type of ventilation
Try to get the patient off the ventilator two times a day onto CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) or onto a "nose"
for a short time.
I don't know if this will help you as weaning is often tailored to each individual patients situation.

------------------
Babylover

[Juniper]

Originally Posted by ALISON CLARK

DOES ANYONE HAVE A POLICY FOR NURSE LED WEANING OF VENTILATION?

Currently we have doctors directives which are updated daily for weaning but we are about to develop a nurse led weaning protocol to give nurses greater autonomy and improve 24hr patient care. We do have a couple of examples of other units protocols and therefore I would be interested to see any you have managed to find.

[UK2USA]

There has been some advancement towards nurse weaning in the UK. Currently, if you are a senior nurse with a paediatric ITU qualification and 2 years PICU experience you can undertake the Advanced Respiratory Module through South Bank University in London. The completion of this will allow staff to wean, increase or change ventilation modes... and also extubate.

[kkazzaRGN]

we have just adopted a nurse led weaning protocol, but it is quite simplistic in that it is not really suitable for long term weaners. It is a very useful tool but you need to use your own common sense as well. The patients who are long term vents need specific weaning protcols where as the post-op overnight vent is appropriate for the protocol. I am actually looking into developing a nurse led weaning protocol for long term weaning at the moment.