Jcaho

[KRVRN]

Well, they're coming this August. This will be my first JCAHO experience as a nurse.

My question is about those cute name signs that we post on the beds with the baby's first name on it. Are those JCAHO-approved? Or does it violate the no-visible-names rule? One could argue that it only has the first name on it so maybe it should be okay, but JCAHO's rules are pretty picky about names being visible. And what if it was actually the parents that put the sign up? Sometimes parents even make a sign that displays the baby's last name too.

I assume that in the interest of abiding by the rules we will just take all signs down temporarily, but I'm still wondering.

[Mofe'ny]

I have a ? about ID bands. What happens when your micropreemies "outgrow " their bands? do you reband them? i have seen them taped on at our NICU and Just wondered if this was OK.

[prmenrs, RN]

We usually tape the #'d bands to their "bed cards"; if they need an ID band for OR or a Code Red, the clerk makes them one of the kind they use for admissions from the outside. If they outgrow bands, we do the same thing.

[KRVRN, BSN, RN]

We reband the baby if the band is too small, too faded, or if 1 is lost. Also if a parent loses one or it gets too faded. One band gets stapled to a paper in the chart and the other (unless it's lost) is destroyed or given to the parents to keep.

Unless the baby is a twin, our tiniest micropreemies will sometimes not be banded at all. Both bands will be taped to the bed. The edges of the band tend to be somewhat sharp and damage the baby's fragile skin (plus they are fairly wide on such a small leg). Technically this is a JCAHO no-no, but of course we do it anyway.