Do you clean B/P cuffs between pts???

Nurses General Nursing

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Just asking this question as have seen it discussed on other listserv.

Especially would like to know what your hospital policies are regarding this.

Especially on med/surg/telemetry type floors where the nurse has generally 5 or more patients and the techs are helping with vital signs.

Thanks

this is a belated response, but i worked as an anesthesia tech for four years, and we would clean all the monitoring equipment as needed throughout the day and a good wipe down with disinfectant at least every night. i found the best way to clean bp cuff and especially the leads was to use the sinks outside the OR (after surgery ended but before housekeeping cleaned) and the disposable scrub brushes with, um i'm blanking but the newer oh cholorahexa-something...and the under nail picks were the best thing for all the nooks and cranies. afterwards, they airdried pretty quickly. you just had to make sure you didn't get water in the end of the cables/tubing doesn't get wet. you'll mess up the machinery if you do this. pardon my non-technical language. but water in the bp tubing messes up the readings and of course it's not good for the electrical part of the ecg plug, etc. the non-disposable pulse ox's are much more fragile, we only used disinfectant spray on these. and yes the dinamap's can be recalibrated...biomed did it at the hospital that i'm referring to.

I don't work in a hospital, I work in dialysis. Each of our patients have their own bp cuff. They are marked with their name and each patient has their own "bin" for their supplies (bp cuff, headphones, tape, remote control to tv, etc).

Too much blood in dialysis to do anything different... If anything is contaminated with blood, it is cleaned with 10% bleach.

Specializes in NICU.

We've used disposable cuffs in NICU for years and they're great. We keep them at the bedside and replace as needed (if soiled, if baby outgrows it - there are five sizes - or if the baby is discharged). They're latex-free, I think Kendall/Argyle makes them.

We have new HP monitors that have a BP machine included, so that cord stays clean as well. Before we had the HPs, we used Dinamaps and just used alcohol to clean the cord between patients.

I work as an aide and sometimes take 50 vital signs a night. I clean the cuff often, whenever I use it on a patient that is dirty or has questionable hygiene, and wipe the whole thing down every night. We have wipes. I do wipe down teh little oximeter finger thing between every patient with an alchohol wipe, because fingers go everywhere!

Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry.
I don't work in a hospital, I work in dialysis. Each of our patients have their own bp cuff. They are marked with their name and each patient has their own "bin" for their supplies (bp cuff, headphones, tape, remote control to tv, etc).

Too much blood in dialysis to do anything different... If anything is contaminated with blood, it is cleaned with 10% bleach.

I also work in dialysis and although we don't have bins like you do, I wish we did! Even if we just wiped down the BP cuff between each patients (which we don't do) and saved each person's headphones. (Many bring their own headphones, but some of the pts who come from the nursing homes couldn't care less.) I'll have to bring this up at work tomorrow...and I'm certainly going to wipe down the pulse ox from now on! Now I feel like an idiot for not having thought about that sooner... :rolleyes:

how?

nope - not unless they are obviously soiled

Each provider sees over 20 patients per day

We can have 4 providers in the office at one time.

Lesssee

2 Bp cuffs. (generally - most patients are ave size)

80 patients

cleaning between each patient

hmmmmmmmm

nope

Specializes in Inpatient Acute Rehab.

We have disposable cuffs.

No... and I don't see anyone else doing it in my unit.

I'm just gratefull if I don't have had to go searching the ward to find it and then that the darn thing works :chuckle

Kay the 2nd :)

I'm just gratefull if I don't have had to go searching the ward to find it and then that the darn thing works :chuckle

Kay the 2nd :)

:uhoh21: do we work at the same hospital? We too are always short... nevermind cleaning them, first we have to find one!

qd (night shift techs) and after a patient on isolation or if they are exposed to blood or bodily fluids ... infection control wise I'm sure we could be doing better, but typically, the pt is wheeled out of the slot (PACU) just as the next one is being wheeled in ... so in practice it's very unlikely ...

We also have disposable cuffs :rolleyes:

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