Ever caught a visitor playing with an IV pump??

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The other night I caught a teenage visitor pressing the "silence" button on the IV pump because (in his words: "It was annoying!"). I explained to him that the when the alarm goes off I need to come in the room to figure out why it was beeping in the first place. The visitor argued with me about it and said that he has done it before and the other nurses didn't say anything!! I told him that he is not allowed to touch the pump and to call me if it ever beeps. There's more to come later....

What would YOU do??

LOL - working in Haematology we have many pts who are as knowledgeable about the pumps as some of the nurses. After all, they've been in hospitals longer than many. I recently had a patient tell me "the antibiotic finished, so I ran a 10ml flush and set it back to 10 ml/hr to keep the vein open"

While I don't actually enourage this kind of thing, the pt in question was spot on in their actions - they'd asked what was "happening next" when I set up the IV - and on that particular hellish day, not having to run in from the other side of the ward was appreciated...

Having said that, the same patient wouldn't let their family or visitors near the pump!

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I work in pediatrics (but not a PICU). When I start IVF's on a pt. I show the parents where the Alarm Silence button is located. I've learned over the years if I don't show them, they start pressing all the buttons, inevitably turning off the pump. I also explain that I will try to reset the pump before it beeps (the parental fear being the beep will wake the child, also, where I work we aren't allowed to set the pump for the entire shift). I tell them if they silence the alarm they must call the desk and tell them the pump is beeping. I also tell them pushing any other buttons might mess up the IV and cause the child to get stuck again. I've never had any problems and the parents are grateful to know how to 'shut the machine up'. :)

That's good nursing! :)

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Specializes in Telemetry.
Why cant peopple just leave things alone maby u need to put a sing saying do not tuch the medical equpment in the room . i cant beleve an 18 year old would not know better i could undestand if he was 9 or 10 and didn not know better. I think if you do not know what ur doing do not tuch it.

18 year olds? How bout the 30 , 40 , 50 year olds that dont know better? lol

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Specializes in ICU, Medical.

Yeah,Once one of the visitor took the patient to toilet, she was on aminophylline, insulin, and other side kcl drip.She insisted to go toilet inspite of our explanation reg condition of patient.Once the nurse left the place the stubborn visitor removed the infusion tubing from the machines and took her to toilet. The infusion was flowing freely and pt collapsed after few minutes.Thanx God the pt survived

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Specializes in NICU.
Yeah,Once one of the visitor took the patient to toilet, she was on aminophylline, insulin, and other side kcl drip.She insisted to go toilet inspite of our explanation reg condition of patient.Once the nurse left the place the stubborn visitor removed the infusion tubing from the machines and took her to toilet. The infusion was flowing freely and pt collapsed after few minutes.Thanx God the pt survived

What I want to know is...what happened to the visitor?

That patient could have easily died due to the visitor's actions.

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Specializes in Oncology RN.

I recently had a patient, retired doc with GI bleed...so we were running octreotide and prevacid drips concurrently (two separate IVs). The octreotide was Y'd in with NS running at 125ml/hr because he had rapid infusion of 6 units PRBCs earlier in the day, a Hgb of 2.9. He thought the NS amount was too much so he would decrease the amount. He even decreased the drip rate for the other two meds because he didn't want to be bothered with having to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. We locked the pump, but he would just disconnect his iv and chuck it on the ground. Ruined both his IVs that way. It took me great pleasure to restart both of the IVs on this guy.

We were glad to see this one go, especially after he managed to insult all the nurses, and the docs as well (he was racist, to boot).

I've heard that folks get a high from IV Benadryl. Phenergan is another big one. I dilute almost every I give IV (there are exceptions, of course). I've even had heated confrontations with patients who DEMANDED I give them narcs at full strength, fast push. If that isn't a big red flag, I don't know what is.

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

The learning curve is getting faster and faster. Who back in the 70s-80s had even heard of video games, hackers and internet. Pumps are a piece of cake for some.

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

Ever had a visitor push the patient's PCA button? We had to send a woman to ICU because she was non-responsive. Turns out the husband had been dosing his wife despite being educated on how this could be dangerous.:nono:

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Yep. Had to call security on a visitor trying to break into the PCA pump the other night.

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Specializes in NICU.
I've heard that folks get a high from IV Benadryl.

I would agree with that. I got IV Benadryl during a CT scan, as I had a minor allergic reaction to the contrast. It was given IV push, and I had saline going wide open (trying to flush out my kidney stones) so it really hit me fast. I was instantly calm and the scan was done a few minutes later. On the way back to the ER, I begged mynurse to let me stop and use a bathroom (again, saline wide open). I felt very lightheaded, almost drunk, and I remember having a conversation with the nurse and thinking, "WHO in the WORLD is talking so much???" And it was me. Almost out of body experience.

It has to have been the Benadryl. I only got Toradol in the ER (WONDERFUL stuff!) for pain. I had received it the day before as well - yep 2 trips to the ER in 24 hours - and asked for it the second time. The nurses were laughing at me - "Wouldn't you prefer morphine instead?" NOPE! Loved Toradol. Took my pain from an 8 to a 0 in minutes and I still had my wits about me.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Gompers, I accidentally gave a pt a double dose of IV benadryl once, and he stated "I feel like I'm drunk, but without the silliness" or something like that. (Not to mention he was technically too young to have ever drunk anything alcoholic, but who's checking? :)) His older brother was staying with him and kept laughing like crazy at what was happening and how he felt (not in a mean way, just kidding around) I felt terrible!! But, he had no lasting effects, but did sleep A LOT that night!!! :p

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Specializes in LDRP.

Well, how about a pt trying to suction Momma's trach? (inline suctioning-she was on a vent)

Apparently when momma was in the icu, the icu nurses were showing her how to suction. Down here, one nurse went in there after hearing vent alarms go off, and HR getting low. Daughter was suctiong vvveerrrrry slowly and making her get a little brady.

crazy.

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