Blood infusion

[lisag1]

I have a question. Another nurse had a patient the other night who was receiving his 2nd unit of blood. The patient pulled his IV out and when she went to check on him, she found the cannula on the floor in a puddle of blood (no clue how long it had been there, how much was wasted). My feeling was that she should not restart the infusion because the blood was contaminated at this point. Should she have just changed the tubing and continued with the infusion? Thanks much!

[meownsmile, BSN, RN]

I really think that the flow of the pump would have kept any contaminates out of the blood bag, they would have been moved in the same direction as the flow of liquid correct? Therefore i probly would have restarted the IV and changed tubing and proceeded with the transfusion.

[GingerSue]

- I agree, the tubing would be changed because it's contaminated.

I don't think the blood would be contaminated.

[barefootlady, ADN, RN]

While I would have changed the tubing, started a new site, allowed the infusion to complete if the time limit was not up and filed an incident report, I am curious to know who was taking vital signs on this patient. We are required to take them every 30 minutes until the unit is completed, so this would give the nurse a window as to how long the infusion had been interrupted if the vital signs were being taken as ordered per most facility policy.

[renerian, BSN, RN]

I would have checked the policy and conferenced with the blood bank.

renerian

[lisag1]

Thanks, I guess everyday you learn something new. My initial feeling was to ditch it all (and she did), but in the future I will advise to do differently. I have only been out of school for about 2 years, so I know I still have so much to learn-never ending. As far as checking VS, I wasn't involved in his direct care-we do have the policy of every 30 minutes so I tend to think that the nurse caring for him probably wasn't doing what she was supposed to. Thanks for the input! :)