[elysium]

what is the best (cleanest) way to obtain a urine sample from a foley catheter?

[soontobenurse2]

I have gone to different hospitals and they all have different procedures. I was told in school, clamp the foley and use a syringe with needle to pierce the tubing. The tubing should seal itself.

But in the hospital I worked the usual procedure was to empty the bag and wait about 30ml and then collect the new urine.

Hope this helps,

[NurseCherlove]

You would never pierce the actual tubing, as that would create an entry for microorganisms - I've never heard of tubing that would seal itsself. THere should however, be a port along the tubing that you would swab with alcohol and aspirate the urine from with a needle/syringe (after clamping for a time).

[earle58]

clamp tubing, aspirate from port.
i agree about not piercing the tubing.

leslie

[Aprilhere]

We were taught to clamp and draw it from the port. As often as the bag is opened to empty...it would not be a clean place to obtain a sample from.

[elysium]

thanks all for your replies.

[NurseyBaby'05]

Originally Posted by Aprilhere

We were taught to clamp and draw it from the port. As often as the bag is opened to empty...it would not be a clean place to obtain a sample from.

Especially because urine can be sitting in the bag for hours sometimes. That's definitely long enought for things to fester. As for the self-sealing tubing, could you be getting the foley tubing mixed up with chest tube tubing? The tubing on a chest tube is self sealing and you can get samples from piercing with a needle.

[AliRae]

our ports are supposed to be used for gettnig samples, but once a needle goes in there, the blasted things leak forever. I usually just get sterile, disconnect from the drainage bag and use a toomey syringe to pull from the catheter.

[Mommy TeleRN]

Are we the only ones that have needleless foley ports? I just screw a syringe on to the closest port to the patient and aspirate what is in the tubing. No needles required

[Diana,RN]

Use alcohol prep to prep port (close to connection site "Foley-bag") withdraw 20 ml''s from port, port is self sealfing, ideally
Diana