Aquapheresis

[cardiacnurse05]

Our unit will soon be performing aquapheresis for treatment of Heart Failure. It was trialed in our CCU and will be coming to the floor. I was wondering if any other non-critical care units are doing this and how it is going.

[llquidilla]

How to set the program in the hospital? Go to CHFsolutions website- they will do the work for you.

Lory

[aking2157]

I am an ICU/CVU nurse in a South Jersey MAGNET hospital. We have recently instituted Aquaphoresis, and have been doing CVVHD for a few years now. We generally use Trialysis or other tunneled dialysis catheters, placed either in the subclavian or internal jugular, for these therapies. We have had very good outcomes and few problems with these catheters. I have never seen either therapy done on a patient that only has a TLC. We have very few alarms that go off because of the access!

[butofcourse]

Good access and anticoagulation are the keys to success w/ the machine. The large bore dual lumen cathaters that CHF Solutions has work best. We have our Interventional Radiology place the lines to ensure successful placement.

The reason this therapy works is because it pulls off both water and sodium. As a result the pt is less likely to re-accumulate the fluid for a longer period of time. great for frequent flyer, end-stage CHF pts. The pts I've seen with this treatment show a very dramatic improvement in symptoms. We've had pt's gurgling on a Non-rebreather turn around in a few hours, and continue to improve until a total of 6 liters was removed.

Stick w/ it. It's cumbersome, but a valuable therapy for the right pt.

[tiffanyleigh0212]

our floor has been using aquadex for awhile and we've had so much success with it. i've only had one negative thing happen while having a patient on it, and it really wasn't even bad, a patient's BP dropped to in the 80's/40's, she had also pulled off over 2L in less than 5 hours. i immediately called the MD, they had me change the rate, and her BP was back up in no time.

our floor will take only 2 aquadex patients at the most at any given time. our patients are also required to have a IJQL with a heparin drip running at the same time. never had any trouble with them personally. we're required to chart pressures qhrs but other than that, there isn't too much more to them. the machine only beeps when the bag is ready to be emptied or something wrong with line, typically just a kink or something.