warmed saline

Specialties Operating Room

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Doing an orbital fracture-the warmer that the sales rep brought in to warm the absorbable implant did not work. This was discovered when the Dr. needed the implant. He had me warm an unopened bottle of NaCl in the microwave for 2 min. It didn't explode, but is this the best practice? If I had known the the machine would malfunction I would've put a wrapped bottle in the autoclave for awhile. I am wondering about plastic debris from warming the bottle? How do you warm your saline and keep it sterile?

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Fluid warmer. Temps are set at 104, bottles are labeled with the date they must be used by (3 weeks) and get refilled daily. Ours are similar to this, but have two units- one for fluids and one for blankets.

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Quote
Fluid warmer. Temps are set at 104, bottles are labeled with the date they must be used by (3 weeks) and get refilled daily. Ours are similar to this, but have two units- one for fluids and one for blankets.

We have the same thing, however, ours is set at 103. It looks like a large steel refrigerator. Top part is for bottles of saline, bottom is for

blankets. And we date them and rotate them out...but we usually use them before they even get close to needing replacement.

I honestly don't think microwaving is ever safe. You have no way of determining if it was heated evenly, which could cause extremely hot spots. And like you mentioned, you don't know if the bottle has broken down at all into the solution.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

To use the warmed saline to in turn warm an implant is probably OK but certainly not best practice and likely to earn a ding if JC or CMS were in the house.

The rep didn't even check his equipment before the procedure started? Pathetic.

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We have the standard saline/blanket warmers, but this is not warm enough to make the implant malleable.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Do you have one of these or something similar? Ours default to 105 degrees, but can be adjusted.

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No we don't; probably what we need. The warming unit that the sales rep brought in was supposed to get to 70C and hold to make implant malleable.

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