When do you resolve a treatment?

[marvelmom]

I work in a long term care. Here's the question.

If a patient has an incision that is healed but has a small scab still do you still monitor it in the TAR until the skin is back to perfect condition or do you resolve it?

I personally think monitoring every small scab on a patient is tedious and unnecessary unless it opens.

Am I wrong? Please correct me if I am. I'm trying to understand why our TAR is full of scabs. Only one nurse puts them in there and she gets absolutely ****** if you resolve them.

[marvelmom]

Oi. Sorry for the astrick's. I forget the site is pg13.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

When I worked in long term care, I would resolve wounds by writing orders to discontinue the wound care treatment. Then I D/C the treatment in the MAR, TAR or wherever the wound care directions are kept.

For instance, if a resident's left elbow skin tear had healed, I'd write "Discontinue daily dressing changes to left elbow skin tear (skin variance has healed)."

[marvelmom]

Thanks for your answer. I know how to resolve them but is it necessary to continue to monitor old scabs like from an old surgical site or skin tear? If it's a small scab is it okay to resolve them?

We have a nurse here that got huffy with me and restarted a tx on a surgical site that has a 0.2 x 0.4 cm scab. It's completely healed other wise. Other patients with scabs are not in the tar for monitoring.

I'm still new and learning but I find monitoring scabs is tedious and unnecessary. Am I wrong?

[ktwlpn, LPN]

We monitor a scabbed area until it falls off on it's own and adjust the treatment accordingly through the stages as it heals. The rationale for this is if the scab gets ripped off too soon you are back to square one.