SCD's and TED hose

We use them both all the time on our bigger post-ops. It will be interesting to see what everyone else does.

Usually both...I don't particularly like either. The TEDs are so slick they have been the cause of several falls/near falls even though we make sure patients have slippers of some sort to put on. The SCDs make the patients feel "strapped down" and some complain about the sound the machine makes.

I work in the CCU where we care for many post op cardiac surgeries...We used to only use TEDS but the new orders have changed and now we are doing SCDs while in the unit and TEDS when they go to our step down...Since it will probably be our responsibility to order up the TEDS I can forsee that the patient may end up wearing both in the unit... I find that while I like the concept of SCDs many patints can't sleep with them on...if that is the case since I work nights, they may end up with TEDS at night...

here we use both, especially for big procedures, like tk's, th's, cabg, and etc. If a patient complains too much we may turn off scd's for a short time, but doctor usually orders on 2 off 30 min to 1 hour for scd's to promote patient comfort.

I work in a smaller hospital. For the orthopedic sx we use both. For abd sx we use the scd. I have often wondered about the need for both.

I think it depends on the manufacturer of the SCD machine. We switched to a new machine that's cloth and the recommendation is not to use TEDs when you have the SCDs on.

We had a surgeon who ordered both and I just asked him why. I thought it was overboard. He actually surprised me with his answer. He said that when he rounded on pts he would aways find the SCD's on the floor and not on the pts legs. To assure the pt was given antiembolic precautions he said he ordered both so that they at least had on ONE or the other! He has since stopped this because he knows it is overboard. We just let the floor nurses know that he is serious about this(as he should be) and to make an effort to have the ordered device on the patients or chart theer refusal to comply. So far no complaints.
Also, a different doc, a nerosurg, stopped using both recently and only uses the SCD's because he had several patients with bad skin breakdown at the thigh area and didn't want to cause more problems.

In my ACLS class we talked about SCDS and TEDS and were told that there is no good reason to have to use both. We also take our SCDs off when the patients complain of discomfort and being hot. We usually take them off for a couple hours. In the class, we were actually told that we should put SCDs back on before 6 hours. That seems like a long time. Most of us keep them off only for a couple hours.