Descripton of tracheal secretion

You need to know color, consistency, and amount. Examples: scant yellow stringy sputum. Or: moderate amount of tan, chunky secretions. If I suction enough to make it to greater than 10cc in the suction container OR if it fills up the line, I'll chart that specifically because that's a lot of sputum.

Color: green, white, clear, yellow, brown, tan, black, red, etc.

Consistency: thin, tenacious, stringy, chunky, sticky, etc. (If you see an actual recognizable item in there, like say, green beans, chart that.)

Amount: scant, moderate, large, or measurement in recognizable terms.

Does that help?

My favorite adjectives for secretions are: Copious quantity, and tenascious consistency. Sometimes you have to try to be a poet. LOL

Better to be poetic than to call it snot soup, I guess.

Better to be poetic than to call it snot soup, I guess.

:lol2: Too funny!

We use computer charting and have a few options for the amount of secretions. Scant, Small (100ml/day) or copious. Our secretion description options to choose from are: thin,watery, thick, frothy, tenacious, purulent, clear, white, tan, green, brown, blood tinged, yellow, pink, and hemoptysis. This seems to pretty much cover it. Hope that this is helpful.