dynamaps and the isolation patient

[birdgardner]

We're told to use the patient's own cuff at bedside, and wipe off the machine with disinfectant wipes from the cart. Is there some order to handle things to minimize contamination? With someone co-operative, taking temp first seems best, but then you get a little kid who does not particularly want a probe in his axilla, and you're holding him still with gloved hands.

How do you clean off C diff spores with disinfectant wipes? "Just do your best"?

The frustrating thing for me is that the peds floor has manual, wall-mounted BP pumps - with no cuffs available. But with the wall-mounted pumps, a wall-mounted thermometer (to keep it from walking), and the disposable steths, you wouldn't have to share equipment at all. And you wouldn't be automatically pumping up to 180 mmHg on a crying four year old either.

Maybe the Dynamap doesn't matter - a child could be sharing the playroom for two weeks before a culture comes back positive, and the families and the techs don't seem to gown and glove at all. I just hate taking a machine that's been everywhere into the room of a particularly vulnerable child.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

We use clorox bleach wipes for patients with C diff. Anything that needs to be shared like glucometers we wipe with bleach wipes. We gown and glove as well. I would be asking for bleach wipes since that is the only thing that kills c diff. Also when the patient leaves that room (discharge or transfer) everything gets tossed. All blood drawing supplies, anything left in the room. The room gets cleaned and completely restocked. Wash your hands with soap and water as well. The hand sanitizers don't kill c diff.

Hope this helps some.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Our dynamaps don't travel into isolation rooms. Except when they do.

Dedicated equipment in each iso room: individual bp cuffs, scopes, temp dots. But the pulse ox goes in and out, getting wiped down with those disinfectant wipes each time. And if someone's getting blood, well, they're on a dynamap that's gonna be wiped down too.

I don't believe for a minute they are disinfected sufficiently. So I'm not exactly shocked when a run of C-diff hits the floor. :uhoh21:

[mary78910]

I have to complain all the time about taking dynamaps from room to room without being cleaned, isolation to reg, and vice-versa. Heck no one even gowns up around here. It's rare to even see a nurse put gloves on when walking into an iso room. I get so mad about it, but they all think i'm nuts. They will go from a c-diff room to a fresh post op with same dynamap and not clean it first. And that happens daily.