Respiratory Ventilators!

Go to the home health forum. NRSKaren has a sticky (it is the last sticky) at the top of the forum concerning vents. Also, if you can contact a DME provider of vents, they might be willing to loan you a copy of a vent operator's manual. HTH.

Our respiratory DME company offered vent classes to our agency. They are hard to find, but many companies that deal in CEUs, inservicing do offer vent workshops for the untrained. You can also look to the education dept. of your local hospitals, or the nursing depts. of your local nursing schools for help with this. Last, but not least, do a google search on the internet to find educational resources in your area. Good luck with your project.

Here are some links I have on ventilators:

• http://www.icufaqs.org/ventFAQ.doc - Vents and AGBs on the Notes on ICU Nursing webpage (http://www.icufaqs.org/)
• http://www.thoracic.org/sections/edu...ntilation.html - a 2-page patient information sheet about mechanical ventilation from the American Thoracic Society Patient Information Series. Includes discussion about it being life-sustaining treatment and the patient making their wishes known regarding the possibility of this treatment.

I also have two pages on Mechanical Ventilation in a new book called Nurse's 5-Minute Clinical Consult: Treatments from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins that lists the complications, nursing diagnoses you would likely use, expected outcomes, care and patient teaching for patients on ventilators. It also has a large boxed section on responding to ventilator alarms (low pressure and high pressure) and lists the possible causes and nursing interventions for each. Three pages from Portable RN: The All-in-One Nursing Reference also has a similar table but seems to include more problems. I would be happy to Xerox and mail these pages to you. PM me with information of where to send them.