Enteral Feeding equipment

[NICU_babyRN, BSN, RN]

Hey ya'll!

I was wondering if any of you can share with me a few things about your methods used for enteral feedings.

Are your syringes "Oral Delivery", non-luer lock syringes? Or do you use regular luer-lock syringes?

What kind of extension tube do you use to get to infants NG/OG? Or do you use microtubing?

Brands and names would be great.

The reason I ask is b/c it is a jcaho guideline to use PO delivery equipment only for PO method of delivery, and IV equipment only for IV administration and so on.

We are trying a few different brands of 'PO only' feeding sets, but I feel like there maybe some more out there!

Thank you soooooo much!!

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

We use regular luer-type syringes. Most of our NGTs are long, so we plug the syringe directly into them. Otherwise we use microbore tubing with a "christmas tree" tip at the end on our G/JTs.

We just passed JCAHO, and they did nothing about our current practice regarding enteral feeds.

[NICURN29]

We use syringes that are strictly for feeding...they are manufactured by a company called Baxa. They are labeled "Exacta-Med Dispenser." We use tubing by Children's Medical Ventures. The tubing is also for enteral use only. Due to the Joint Commission, we no longer are able to use our med tubing and med syringes for feeding.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

We do use the Exacta-Med syringes for meds, which is nice because you can tell in a flash when pharmacy screws up and sends you oral meds instead of IV. We also have the orange-stripe enteral tubing to extend short NG/OGTs, but the asinine thing is that the distal end is a luer-lock. Um, duuuuuhhhh.

[RN4Little1s]

We use an anti-IV enteral feeding system. I will have to look for the brand at work - tips are orange, silastic tubes are orange and come in 22" and 36" sizes (other available, that's what we stock). We use orange extention tubing on syringes. I second knowing when pharmacy messes up. I think it is a great idea to use this system. Our unit did not think we would comply with JCAHO without changing.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

We use the orange striped one. Purple is for UK...just a tidbit lol We had to change from using regular syringes and tubing to that.

[Sweeper933]

We also use the "orange stripe" equipment. All of our oral syringes are non-leurlock as well.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

Are we using some cracked-out version of the orange-stripe stuff? Because it has the Christmas tree on the baby end, a tag that says "for enteral use only" on it, but the syringe end is a Luer that doesn't admit the Exacta-Med syringes.

[Sweeper933]

I can't remember the brand of ours right now - I can check when I'm at work tonight.

[chescat58, RNC-NIC]

We use the purple system in Orlando, FL

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

We use the orange too. Huh, we were told that the purple was for Canada and UK too. Wonder if there is another brand that is purple.

[chescat58, RNC-NIC]

The purple company that we use is Vygon. We just switched this past summer. You absolutely can not use any other syringes but theirs. The tubing is purple. We have tubing, tubes, syringes. The reps from the company were all here during transition and were very nice and helpful.