Enteral Feeding equipment

[NICU_babyRN]

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!!

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Our unit did not think we would comply with JCAHO without changing.

I think this is one of those secrets about JCAHO and what is "required". I think "what is required" is really largely what your hospital's JCAHO prep committee thinks is required.

My husband works at another NICU in the same region where I do, our units are pretty similar. A couple of years ago my unit had to go to the enteral-only syringes and tubing because it was a "JCAHO" requirement. JCAHO came through and we passed with flying colors.

Approximately 6 months later his unit had their JCAHO visit. They don't know anything about enteral-only syringes or tubing, and they also passed their review with no recommendations.

Of course I'm sure they had to make some other changes that my unit didn't have to as it was an absolute "JCAHO requirement".

Having said all that I have personally gone to the JCAHO website and switching to enteral only systems seems to be a priority for them so I don't know how my husband's unit didn't have to make the change.

[NICU_babyRN, BSN, RN]

I think this is one of those secrets about JCAHO and what is "required". I think "what is required" is really largely what your hospital's JCAHO prep committee thinks is required.

My husband works at another NICU in the same region where I do, our units are pretty similar. A couple of years ago my unit had to go to the enteral-only syringes and tubing because it was a "JCAHO" requirement. JCAHO came through and we passed with flying colors.

Approximately 6 months later his unit had their JCAHO visit. They don't know anything about enteral-only syringes or tubing, and they also passed their review with no recommendations.

Of course I'm sure they had to make some other changes that my unit didn't have to as it was an absolute "JCAHO requirement".

Having said all that I have personally gone to the JCAHO website and switching to enteral only systems seems to be a priority for them so I don't know how my husband's unit didn't have to make the change.

As with any new regulation, there is a period of time where all hospitals will pass JCAHO visits even when 'breaking' a few rules. Although a hospital may have passed, the final report probably mentioned things the need to change in the near future! JCAHO wont make a new rule and expect cultures to change overnight.....

[FlutterbyNurse]

We use the Nutrisafe 2 system by VYGON. http://www.vygonusa.com/whats-new.htm

It is a purple system that sarted in the UK and is now over here in States as well. It is NG tubes, NG tubing and Enteral feed syringes. They have a special end on all of them that does not allow for any other kind of syringe to be used on them. We recently made the switch for the purpose of meeting JCAHO standards as well.

I like the new system. Only real complaint we've had on it is that the numbers on the NG tubes are hard to read when you are placing them. We've talked to the company about this and they are working on changing the font to make it easier to see.

Hope this helps!! :redpinkhe

[tryingtohaveitall]

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.

We use the same tubing in our PICU and NICU. For giving meds, we have the oral only syringes, but when we draw up our tube feedings, it gets drawn up in a luer lock syringe.