Consent for albumin?

Specialties MICU

Published

Specializes in ICU, ER.

An agency nurse in our ER wanted the doc to get a Blood Products Permission slip signed by a patient. Her reasoning was that albumin is a blood product. Anyone heard of this?

Specializes in SRNA.

Looking at http://www.albumintherapy.com/us/en/ask.html#6 it does indeed seem that it is derived from plasma donations. However, I've never seen a consent required for it either. I could see how patients who refuse blood products for religious/cultural reasons may object to receiving this if they knew what it was derived from.

Specializes in NICU.

I've never seen it, but we usually only give it to pts on ECMO or post-bypass, so they've already signed a blood consent at that point. I've wondered too - we don't give it through a separate line like a blood product.

Specializes in Cardiac.

Nope, never seen that. We give it without consent, but it comes with its own special tubing that we change with each bottle...

Specializes in Post Anesthesia.

I have never seen a premission slip for albumin but I do know the local Kingdom Hall has ruled that it is blood per-se and cannot be given under thier beliefs.

We treat albumin as a medication, not a blood product, though we get it from the blood bank. We never require signed consent, though if I had a Jehovah's Witness pt. I would ask them what their wishes were. Though albumin is derived from blood, it does not need to by typed or cross-matched. We give a lot of albumin to pts. who are low or need it as a volume expander.

I've always given it as a medication too, it is scheduled on the MAR. Monitoring was not done. It came from pharmacy where I worked, in a glass bottle that came from the manufacturer. It did come with it's own tubing which of course wouldn't work in a pump.

Specializes in Critical Care, ER.
An agency nurse in our ER wanted the doc to get a Blood Products Permission slip signed by a patient. Her reasoning was that albumin is a blood product. Anyone heard of this?

Yep. Albumin is a blood product & by following the policy correctly it does require a consent just like any other blood product. Only a few of the hospitals i've worked in have followed this but considering it is a blood product I think it's a smart thing to do.

No, no consent needed.

Specializes in Cardiac.
It came from pharmacy where I worked, in a glass bottle that came from the manufacturer. It did come with it's own tubing which of course wouldn't work in a pump.

When we are giving it as a gtt and not a bolus, we can still use the tubing on a pump. We just hang it as a PB with a NS driver.

Specializes in NICU.
When we are giving it as a gtt and not a bolus, we can still use the tubing on a pump. We just hang it as a PB with a NS driver.

I should have mentioned that since I'm in a NICU, we never use the entire bottle, and draw it up in a syringe and give it over time on a pump, even if it is a bolus. Can't go too fast through a 1Fr PICC! The fastest I've managed to do it is 20min.

Specializes in SICU/MICU/CVICU/NEURO.

Well I have worked for two hospitals in south Texas within the same system, one required it one did not. Once we were giving albumin to a jehovah witness and I was wondering if they knew where it came from.

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