How to calculate continuous bladder irrigation?

Nurses General Nursing Nursing Q/A

Can someone please tell me how to calculate continuous bladder irrigation?

Thanks!

11 Answers

Specializes in floor to ICU.

Figure out what went in. Figure out how much you emptied out. The positive difference is true urine. We use a flow sheet.

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

What I do is empty the foley bag each time an irrigation bag runs out. Then I subtract the 3000 mL (that's what's in our irrigation bags) from what was in the foley. There's your urine output.

Specializes in LTC, rehab to home, PACU.

Either start with a fresh irrigation bag and fresh foley to start your counts, or mark your irrigation bag and start with an empty foley bag when you get the patient. Our bags are 3000ml so when a bag is done going in you empty your foley (or I have used a 24hr urine collection container if you have to empty the foley before the irrigation bag is empty,keep this urine in the jug until your irrigation bag is complete to keep your I&O organized). 3000ml is recorded as CBI in and 3000ml of output is recorded as CBI out and whatever is left from your output ml's is recorded as urine output. For some reason this was hard for me to get the hang of right away as a new nurse in PACU, a seasoned nurse finally said "Look it is not that difficult, when you get your patient start with a fresh bag and fresh foley!"

Specializes in cardiac/medical.

Input-output= true urine. However, I have found it nearly impossible to get an accurate reading, especially if the irrigation is running fast.

Specializes in Med/Surg.

The problem is ensuring that everyone does it correctly. If the person before you screws up and either does not credit the right input or output there will be almost no way that you can be correct on your shift. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how you do it as long as you know accurately how much went in from the irrigation bag and how much came out from the foley. Hopefully there will be more in the foley than went in through irrigation and this will be the urine output. If you get a negative number it is likely there was a previous error, however as this could indicate the patient is not producing urine if this is ongoing renal function should be assessed and the urologist notified.

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

And for Pete's sake, never drop one of those bags. I was helping someone else, and the bag hit the floor after it had been spiked (but we hadn't completed the hook up to the patient, we were just getting started). You'd have thought we'd slung a water hose around the room.

On the flip side, that floor hadn't been that clean in God knows how long; that's a LOT of fluid.

PatsFan1969 said:
Input-output= true urine. However, I have found it nearly impossible to get an accurate reading, especially if the irrigation is running fast.

I beg to differ: it's completely impossible!:uhoh3: (I was changing her CBI bag every hour, thanks to whoever graduated the bath basins!)

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
simboka said:
I beg to differ: it's completely impossible!:uhoh3: (I was changing her CBI bag every hour, thanks to whoever graduated the bath basins!)

Sometimes you need to dump them more often........switch off with the aide.:)

Specializes in floor to ICU.

I finally had a big enough fit and mgmt ordered the BIG foley bags (4,000 I think?) One time, I had to run the irrigation really fast- guy kept clotting up. I was super busy w/ other patients and running as fast as I could go. I knew that bag had to be getting full. By the time I got to his room I almost fainted when I saw that the regular foley bag was so full, it looked like a big fat cherry. :eek:

I felt so stupid that i don't know how to fill up the chart....i should have ask

General E. Speaking, RN said:
I finally had a big enough fit and mgmt ordered the BIG foley bags (4,000 I think?) One time, I had to run the irrigation really fast- guy kept clotting up. I was super busy w/ other patients and running as fast as I could go. I knew that bag had to be getting full. By the time I got to his room I almost fainted when I saw that the regular foley bag was so full, it looked like a big fat cherry. :eek:

Our CBI lines are a y-line so we can hook up two 3000 bags...going into a 4000 drainage bag. I walked in on one running wide open at change of shift and thought the drainage bag was gonna blow! It looked just like you described...a big, fat, ready-to-explode :o

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