CBI

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Those of you in ER nursing. I am in my 6th week of orienting to the ER. I had a pt today who needed continuous bladder irrigation. It was SO TIME CONSUMING. Every half hour i was in there emptying the foley bag or clearing clots or charting on what I had done. Now my preceptor had me as a 1:1 with this patient but obviously when I am off orientation I won't have that opportunity. Is there anything I can do to be more time effective when I have more than a 1:1 with that?? I just felt so ineffective, even though she said I was doing fine.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

It sounds like you did fine. Yes having a patient with a CBI can be very time consuming when you have a regular patient load.

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Specializes in ER, SANE, Home Health, Forensic.

That's a very time consuming patient in the ER! You can adjust your flow rate on the CBI, as long as you have a steady stream coming out of the foley you should be fine. Unfortunately there is no easy way to manage this patient that is not time consuming. Be sure to utilize your aide to empty foley; that may help. Be SURE to advise them of the importance of accurate I&O.

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Specializes in ER, IICU, PCU, PACU, EMS.

It sounds like you did a fine job!

There will be times when you get a critical 1:1 patient with a full load. That is when your fellow coworkers join in and watch your other patients until you're free of that particular patient. It happens.

Keep up the good work!

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Specializes in Emergency, Internal Medicine, Sports Med.

Nothing much you can do unfortunately. It's the worst when those get a lot of clots and basically half your shift is syringing! Just keep in mind, if you get a patient like this with a full load, or for that matter- any acutely ill/time consuming patient, you need to advocate for yourself to the charge nurse and say haaaaang on a second..... hopefully they won't put you with 2 or 3+ 1:1's... although it happens. Just do the best you can. No trick to CBI's, other then to make sure you don't drop pocket contents into the bucket (like my coworker did to her cell phone!)

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

Was it a 4,000ml Foley bag? I had to fight with my hospital to get them. Before them, I had a pt on CBI and he was bleeding heavily requiring the irrigation to go very fast. He was scheduled to go back into surgery soon. Seemed like I was emptying the bag every 10 minutes. I got busy in another room and by the time I got back to the pt his Foley bag looked like a big fat cherry that was about to explode. :eek:

The 4,000ml bags help tremendously.

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Was it a 4,000ml Foley bag? I had to fight with my hospital to get them. Before them, I had a pt on CBI and he was bleeding heavily requiring the irrigation to go very fast. He was scheduled to go back into surgery soon. Seemed like I was emptying the bag every 10 minutes. I got busy in another room and by the time I got back to the pt his Foley bag looked like a big fat cherry that was about to explode. :eek:

The 4,000ml bags help tremendously.

Great idea, I have NEVER seen one, myself!

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Specializes in ER.

There is no "help" for that other than get the largest bag possible, running as slow as possible... And get them upstairs, ASAP!

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