We get a lot of blood transfusion patients to our med/surg floor. Many are coming in just for the blood and then D/C. In fact, some are complaining that on our unit, we run the blood in too slow, as they get each unit over 2 hours at "the other outpatient clinic." Assuming a unit is about 300 ml, that's 150ml/hr! Most of the time the docs are not writing in how fast to give the blood, so it is at the RN's discretion.
I am uncomfortable with 150ml/hr, unless the MD says it's okay to run it in fast. Am I just old school or what?
I start out at 70ml/hr for 1st half hour, and if pt tol well and vitals okay, etc., bump up the rate after that. If they are elderly, I don't like to go above 100ml/hr.
For the younger folks, I will run at 125/hr if tol well. This is of course, a non issue for inpatient transfusions, as they are already staying the night. But I am getting grief from these outpatient type transfusion patients...who want to go home immediately! Some are quite rude, too. Many are oncology patients. I am only trying to be safe and not dump in fluids too fast.
By the way, I checked our facilities P&P and they say to run it in under 4 hours. 3 hours seems about right to me. It can take a long time if they are getting 3 units. Just curious if I am being over-protective?
Genista, BSN, RN
811 Posts
We get a lot of blood transfusion patients to our med/surg floor. Many are coming in just for the blood and then D/C. In fact, some are complaining that on our unit, we run the blood in too slow, as they get each unit over 2 hours at "the other outpatient clinic." Assuming a unit is about 300 ml, that's 150ml/hr! Most of the time the docs are not writing in how fast to give the blood, so it is at the RN's discretion.
I am uncomfortable with 150ml/hr, unless the MD says it's okay to run it in fast. Am I just old school or what?
I start out at 70ml/hr for 1st half hour, and if pt tol well and vitals okay, etc., bump up the rate after that. If they are elderly, I don't like to go above 100ml/hr.
For the younger folks, I will run at 125/hr if tol well. This is of course, a non issue for inpatient transfusions, as they are already staying the night. But I am getting grief from these outpatient type transfusion patients...who want to go home immediately! Some are quite rude, too. Many are oncology patients. I am only trying to be safe and not dump in fluids too fast.
By the way, I checked our facilities P&P and they say to run it in under 4 hours. 3 hours seems about right to me. It can take a long time if they are getting 3 units. Just curious if I am being over-protective?