Albumin administration rate and IV tubing

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How fast do we infuse albumin? Is it 30 minutes or 1 hour or 2 hours? Special long tubing-a primary tubing comes from pharmacy. I thought it would be secondary tubing. It has that rolling drip regulator, and I can't even put in the IV pump but only to flow by gravity. It's kind of tiring because I have to manually regulate and count the rate. Do you infuse it by gravity too? Can I directly connect the tube to the IV heplock or I can Y tube it nearest to the patient but still by gravity? Or can I connect it as secondary using the special long tubing provided by pharmacy but only thing is it will be long enough to use as secondary. Now, I have to raise the IV pole as high as possible. Am I doing the right thing? There are occasions that the drip stops, so I have to squeeze the drip chamber and open and close the vent. The albumin comes in glass bottle. Please help.

When Albumin is adminstered, does a blood consent need to be signed?

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tng0677 said:
When Albumin is adminstered, does a blood consent need to be signed?

Where I am, we do not need a consent because it not a blood product per se, ie FFP, cryo, platelet etc. I suppose there might be institutions that require it, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense.

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Specializes in Cardiac/Progressive Care.

We used to run it in by gravity, and pharmacy bundled it with specific tubing with the filter built in. Took roughly 30 minutes to infuse. Now we run it through the pump, with regular pump tubing and a filtered extension set. We are to run it over an hour now.

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Did you know you can give albumin IV push? I did that last week, per charge nurse instructions. I never knew, makes sense though.

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It IS a blood product!! Like all others this is harvested not synthesized. Your patient should understand that , risks/benefits and dig for informed consent unless, like anything else, the situation calls for implied consent

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AspiringMD said:
It IS a blood product!! Like all others this is harvested not synthesized. Your patient should understand that , risks/benefits and dig for informed consent unless, like anything else, the situation calls for implied consent

Albumin is not considered a banked blood product, rather, in most places, it comes from pharmacy. Admission consent covers it just like it covers any other medicine or IV. The patient is consenting to the discretion and judgment of the hospital/facility personnel. I suppose if the patient were JW, I'd ask specifically if they would accept it, otherwise it is prescriber's discretion.

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Specializes in FNP- psych, internal med, pediatric.

While albumin is not considered a banked blood product at some institutions, it is a component of blood, as FFP, etc., regardless of where it is kept in a hospital setting. Whether the institution treats it as such is a secondary policy, but I agree with Aspiring MD, it should be explained as a blood by-product.

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I am not a nurse but develop med tech products for the OR. reading thru this blog, it seems like there are some missing need for delivery of albumin. hoping to get some opinions on this topic. Would there be value if albumin was available in a container that could administer the albumin from a self contained disposable pump. Similar to a disposable infusion pump but where the albumin is available already filled in a disposable pump, and it comes with a IV tubing set, and this tubing set has an adjustable flow regulator to allow flow adjustment from 1 to 150 ml/hr (or whatever the full spectrum of clinically relevant flow rates needed). Seems there is a lot of ad hoc configurations with different albumin offerings (bottles, bags) and tubing sets. This would be one complete kit where you could infuse the albumin independent of an electrical pump with tubing set provided. I have a solution but need to determine if there is a real need or problem. thanks for any input

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Specializes in Emergency.

If it's in a glass bottle, just use primary tubing and open the vent right next to the spike. Just like what you do for Ofirmev. Our facility does not use special tubing from pharmacy.

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250ml bottle: Vented spike, gravity tubing, sometimes gravity blood tubing helps because you can squeeze the ball and make sure it all goes in. (usually for someone with low BP and needs it fast)

50ml bottle: on a pump through secondary tubing (to help with diuresis) then Lasix after

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also vented spikes are awesome! my old facility didn't have them and we had to use a needle.

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